Forest Meeting
by Shy Whisper Of Life
Summary: What would happen if Hyuuga Hinata, being the kind person she is, found Kiba as a wolf lying hurt in the middle of the forest? After a frightening display, she still wishes to help him. Because, maybe, they are similar in some ways after all.
1. Hinata

Forest Meeting

**(A/N: Hey! I know, I should be working on a story that you all voted for, but I got distracted. No worries though, I do have an idea in mind to satisfy the top pairing. It's actually a tie, so I'm gonna make it a SasoHinaGaa love triangle. I'm still working out the plot [in other words, I haven't started writing it yet] and trying to get it to fit into a oneshot, but I don't think that's gonna happen. Maybe I can make it a short story instead of 19 chapters this time. **

**Anyway, um… I have a new anime obsession. It just so happens to be Wolf's Rain. The best anime ever [though I must say, Naruto still tops my manga category] the Wolf's Rain anime tops my anime category. SO! I decided to do a cross over. This is [hopefully] gonna be just a three first two chapters are [unfortunately] going to be really short. Because of this, I'll post them back to back. The last chapter is gonna be a bit longer than normal because I wanna keep it three chapters [and you're gonna have to wait for it cause it's not done yet]. I hope no one minds.**

**What a long authors note… Wow. I bet very few people are even gonna read this cause it's so long. Either way, though. I'm excited about this one. I [personally] think it's some of my best writing. There are others who may disagree though. I couldn't come up with a more creative title. Total brain fart in that area. Gomen.**** Anyway, on with the story.)**

A petite girl, long hair a soft fluttering raven's wing, ran through the forest. She was trying her utmost to escape her pursuer, but it was slowly gaining ground, reaching closer to the terrified fifteen year old.

She could hear the sharp puffs of air leaving the animal behind her in loud growls of anger. She could hear the viscious teeth snapping each time it got near. She could feel its nose brush through her hair as its fangs snapped at her. Even though she was facing away from it and running for her life, she could still see the horrifyingly sharp, hooked claws and furious slits of its yellow eyes, so different from her own opalesque ones.

_If only I had minded my own business instead of messing with this thing, I wouldn't be in this mess._ She thought, cursing herself and her kindly nature.

The white of its coat had stood out in the lush green and brown of the woodland trees. She'd immediately approached with caution to find a large dog curled under the outreaching roots of a particularly old tree. It was injured and seemed to be close to death, so she edged closer, reaching out to see if it had a pulse.

It had jumped away from her hand, fur standing on end with anger, so quickly that her eyes barely regestered the movement. Shrieking and jumping away quickly, she noticed that the white ball of fur had one leg only lightly pressing into the dust, scarlet pooling around that paw.

"You're hurt." She had whispered. It simply growled and crouched to leap at her, claws outstretched, when she took a step toward it. Had she been a normal person, it would have killed her. However, instead of meeting its mark, the large dog landed on an empty path.

It glanced around, nose crinkling in concentration. Hoping to find her scent, she guessed.

It turned to look straight at her, eyes narrowing. It had located her, and she could see the bloodlust in its eyes. She took off running, and it gave chase.

This led her to her current predicament. The beast was almost upon her, and her running led her to a large clearing. She could easily be ambushed, whether by others of the dog's kind or by enemies of her village, while she was preoccupied with the beast before her.

This single moment of distraction, hesitation, led to her undoing, though. The creature leaped into the air, pushing her to the ground and making them both skid across the clearing in a thick cloud of dust.

Looking up at it, the animal almost seemed to sneer at her, taunting her weakness, her hesitation, her entire being. It opened its mouth, revealing to her two rows of teeth that were sharp as kunai, and she flinched backward into the sandy ground.

She felt warm liquid dripping onto her pants leg, noting that it was blood: the beast's blood. Even in her current situation, she still felt sorry for it. Had it not attacked her, she would have healed it. She wondered at the creature's power and running capabilities had it not been injured.

She cried out the name of her most trusted person, who had been outside the gates with her a short while ago, in hopes of him being close enough to rescue her. "Kiba!" She shouted hoarsely, for the large dog now had a paw resting on her throat as it got ready to bite into her neck.

As soon as her shout was heard by the creature, its paw left her throat and the pressing weight keeping her to the ground was lifted away. Again, the girl shouted for her friend.

Then, she became aware of the beast's position, still near, but now calmer. It seemed to be staring at her, confusion in its eyes, with its head tilted to the side.

Before her eyes, it changed. As the large dog disappeared, a boy was left in its place. His chocolate brown hair was wild and unkempt, falling into his dark blue eyes. His olive green jacket covered a white shirt that was only half buttoned in the front. The light blue jeans he wore were tight, the bottom of the legs baggy against his black and white tennis shoes. He was pale, despite his look that he had spent many a day in the sun. His face wore a look of stubbornness, mouth curved down in a frown.

The jacket was unbuttoned and was pushed up to his elbows, leaving his forearms bare. The light blue of the jeans contrasted with the dark colors of his jacket. On his right thigh, there was a deep gash in his leg, still bleeding, pouring his crimson life's blood in a thick stripe down his jeans.

"Who are you?" She heard him ask.


	2. Kiba

Chapter 2

**(A/N: Okay, so the last chapter focused mostly on Hinata, but this chapter will focus mainly on Kiba. It's the same story, but from a different focus, shedding a bit of light on what he is thinking, instead of what Hinata is thinking.)**

The large, snowy white wolf chased after the girl who had disturbed his resting place. He was angry, for she was running ahead of him, trying to escape him, and she was almost succeeding. Ever so slowly, he was gaining ground on her, but he would be unable to keep running at this pace for much longer.

He was chasing after her with such effort that his breath came out in sharp puffs, making the girl run faster. He snapped his teeth at her each time he was near enough to reach, but the pause in his step let her get further ahead and all he got was a mouthful of her long raven strands of hair.

He wished she had just minded her own business. If she had, he wouldn't have to chase her down and get rid of her.

He knew his coat would stand out in a forest of greens and browns. After being injured in a horrifying fight, his leg had a large gash in it and he was loosing blood rapidly. He curled up under the outstreached roots of a large tree and lay down to calm his breathing and slow the bloodloss.

When he caught another scent, one that was close by and unfamiliar, he'd jumped up. His fur was standing on end with surprise. He stood before her on a large root as she shrieked and jumped away from him almost as quickly as he had from her.

The wolf made sure to keep most of his weight off his injured hind leg, only allowing it to press into the dusty ground lightly. He felt his blood pooling around his foot, and noticed the girl's gaze travel to the vermillion puddle.

She surprised him when she spoke. "You're hurt." She had said.

He growled at her, getting ready to leap. She saw his weakness even though he did his utmost not to show it. He lept at her with claws readied, though he met nothing but ground. This was not a normal girl he was dealing with, the wolf quickly realized. _That attack should have killed her._ He thought.

He sniffed the air for her scent, nose crinkling in concentration as he took deep breaths. He located her scent rather quickly and he turned to face her. By now, he realized that the girl posed a threat to him and he needed to get rid of her. She took off, and he made sure to give chase.

This led him to his current predicament. He was running after her with a still-bleeding leg, trying to get rid of the threat she posed to him in his mind. He almost howled with joy as she hesitated at the edge of a clearing. He could care less why she did, but still, he was thankful to whatever the reason.

It was in that moment of her distraction that he attacked. Leaping into the air, he landed on top of her with such force that the momentum caused them to skid across the clearing in a thick cloud of dust.

Looking down at her he looked into her eyes, wondering why she had disturbed him, why she had paused, and how she could have dodged his powerfully fast attacks. Shaking his head, he opened his mouth, revealing to her his razor sharp teeth and watching her flinch backward into the sandy ground.

He had to finish this fight quickly, for he could feel his blood dripping from his wound to the pants of the girl and making a puddle below them.

Moments before he was about to sink his teeth into her neck, she shouted a name, causing him to pause in confusion.

"Kiba!" Was the hoarsely shouted name that passed through her vocal chords into the air.

Immediately, he backed away from her. He removed his paw from her throat and took that instant to study her shaking, terrified form.

The raven locks that covered her head were messed up and strewn with dust. A glance into her eyes gave him only a pale lilac looking back at him. She wore a headband around her neck, and looking closer, she had a piece of metal with a symbol on it.

Her clothes were rather baggy, a large lavender and white jacket that covered her entire upper body and a pair of blue pants that ended around her mid-calf. She had netting under her jacket, which was unzipped enough to see only the headband and small bit of netting and bandages wrapped around her upper right thigh.

Her shoes were open toed and almost boot like, but more like sandles than anything, really. Her face was creased with the terror their chase had brought her and a light red stained her cheeks.

Warily, he let his wolf form dissipate in her presence, knowing she would believe herself crazy if he spoke to her as a wolf. He watched her face as he transformed, making sure he saw no anger or sign of attack or running in it.

Satisfied with his observations, he spoke. "Who are you?"


	3. Mission

**(A/N: Hey! I've been really busy lately, sorry for the delay.**

**Okay, so I have a ton of ideas for this story, and I tried to make a super-long ending chapter work, but it didn't. So I'm gonna just make this a short story (hopefully) instead of a three-shot. I really did try to keep this short, so that you guys wouldn't have to wait an insanely long time for me to update, like happened with my other chapter story, but it just wouldn't work. I couldn't make it no matter how hard I tried to think of a way. There were just too many possibilities (curse the plot elephants [like plot bunnies, only HUGE] and their evil whispers) and I couldn't give up on them. At first, I had this really short, cute, friendship story ready to be written as a three-shot. But then I got this idea, and it led to other ideas, and soon I had a full blown short story in mind. So yeah. This is probably gonna have 6-10 chapters. Hopefully. I wanna keep it that short. But I can't really promise anything, cause I don't really have an ending in mind with this longer plot. I just type the chapters as they come to me most of the time. No planning ahead, so I don't even know what will happen next until I actually sit down and start typing it most of the time.**

**Anyway. Sorry again for the delay, and I hope a really long chapter will make you happier. 18 pages in Microsoft Word.)**

Chapter 3

His question went unanswered the first time it was asked. The girl was just staring at him like he was a monster. Then again, he was used to that. Once more, he asked his question. Upon again being ignored, he growled, more like his true self than a human.

This made the girl's attention snap immediately back to him. "Who are you?" He repeated, angered by her lack of answer.

"H-Hyuuga Hinata. D-demo, why?" She questioned in return.

"Hinata." The boy said, as though testing her name on his lips. "How do you know me?" He inquired, ignoring her question for the moment.

He was unsatisfied with her answer, given a few seconds later. "I-I have n-n-never met you before. W-w-who are you?"

"Are you a psychic? Someone who knows things before they happen? How did you know my name?" The boy demanded.

"I-Iie! I'm am n-none of those things! I-I-I have never m-met you in m-my entire l-life!" The petite girl flinched away from his smoldering eyes, voice hitting a higher octave than before.

"Then how do you know my name?" He asked, his quiet fury more frightening than outright anger would have been.

"I t-truly do not h-have any idea of w-who you are." Hinata said sincerely, wondering if this boy -wolf- was sane.

Sighing, he answered her with his name. "Kiba." When she only looked at him in confusion, he clarified. "My name is Kiba."

Her expression cleared impetuously and she leapt to her feet, causing the boy to flinch backward and growl at the sudden movement. Hinata's head turned toward him, raven locks flying around her face at the movement. "I-I have a friend b-back in the v-village that goes by that n-name. It was h-he whom I-I was calling earlier."

Kiba's eyes narrowed at her easy admission of performing such trickery on him. He glared at her with prideful arrogance, wondering what, exactly, she was. When she spoke, it did not grate on his sensitive ears like many humans' speech, but was a soft, lilting tone that flowed gently to his mind. Without the stuttering, her speech would have been quite enchanting, he was reluctant to admit.

"W-where do you come from? I-I have never seen you in this f-forest before." He noted that the more she spoke with him, the more comfortable she grew with speaking, and the less she stuttered.

"I have been a wanderer for most of my life. I have no home. I came here because I needed rest, nothing more, nothing less." He scowled at her, trying to figure out where her conversation was taking them.

"I-I could heal y-your leg for you. I-I trained a bit in medicinal jutsu, s-so that would be no problem." She stated hesitantly, unaffected by the wolf boy's glower simply because she was used to it. There were enough Hyuugas who sent them her way every day, though none of them would admit it were they asked.

"Iie, I've been through worse before. I have no need for your human medicines. All I need is a little rest. So either you leave, or say something worth my time." Kiba looked around the forest, searching for each escape route or ambush point, as per his habit when away from his 'pack'.

"I-I would be happy to ask Hokage-sama t-to let you stay in the v-village until you've rested." Hinata spoke, wondering if the wolf-boy would accept the invitiation of a stranger. She had seen the bewildered look on his face when she had spoken earlier, stating that he was hurt, then seen it once more when she offered to heal him.

The raven haired girl wondered just what happened to him, wherever he had come from, to make him so confused when receiving kindness. Just as she had suspected, her offer made him pause in his observations of their surroundings and focus on her with puzzled expression.

"Why would you offer such a thing? I am a wolf. Is that not enough reason to kill me now?" The boy questioned bluntly, wondering if this was some elaborate scheme to get him into a village, then surround and kill him.

"W-why would anyone kill y-you simply for being a wolf? I-I must admit I've never s-seen one personally u-until now. I-I was only wondering at your safety here in the m-middle of the woods. Then again, the forest is w-where you live, now that I think about it." The girl shyly ended her sentence and seemed to shrink before Kiba's eyes.

He observed the girl for a moment, wondering what she was trying to accomplish by inviting him into her village. He thought carefully at what motive she might have, and upon finding none, he spoke. "I will accept your offer." He said simply, finding that her company did not grate on his nerves as he had thought it would.

"Okay, we will have to go straight to the Hokage's office to let her know that you will be staying with me until you are well." Hinata paused in her explaination. She studied the boy before her warily as she opened her mouth, then closed it once more. It was as if she were searching for the correct words to express what she needed without angering him.

"Anou… It is probably best if you are a wolf when we enter the village. There should be no reason for anyone in Konoha to suspect you of being one, but just a large dog, as I did." She was extatic at the idea that he accepted and liked her idea. She knew it sounded foolish, but he really did look like he needed someone to help him heal. Besides, very few people actually heard her ideas, and even fewer liked them. Not once did she realize, though, that she didn't stutter.

She watched as Kiba thought through her logic and, upon finding no dangerous pitfalls that could certainly spell his death, he became a wolf once more. "What now?" He asked, curious as to how she expected to get him into the village itself.

"Well, I was thinking I could transport us b-both straight to the Hokage Tower, but that would require you to trust me and be in contact with me."

Kiba, albeit cautiously, complied once more with her statements. They were reasonable enough, and he had yet to sense any murderous intent. He knew his limits and he knew that he needed help. Besides that, he was following his instincts in this strange place the Hyuuga girl called home, certain that such a method was the only way he could survive.

Hinata gradually inched her way closer to the wolf-boy, careful to make no sudden movements that could entice him to attack. When she was close enough to pet the soft fur of his ears, she withheld the urge and instead, lay her hand, with the palm facing her other hand, on the crown of his skull.

She brought her other hand forward, quickly forming the needed signs for the transportation jutsu. The two disappeared from the forest, the only sign that they had been there: a small puff of white smoke that cleared away immediately.

The two reappeared in a building that was foreign to the wolf. He told himself to just relax: there was nothing to fear. Surely there were no others of exceptional speed such as the girl's. He could definitely outrun each and every human present, save for the Hyuuga girl: of that he was confident.

He observed his surroundings for a moment more before he heard the girl speaking to two men standing outside a door. "M-may I p-please speak to Hokage-sama for a m-moment. I-I don't have an appointment, b-but I found an animal in the w-woods, and it has been injured b-badly. I think Tsunade-sama w-would be most interested in it." Hinata spoke with a stutter while gesturing vaguely in his direction.

The two men took in the blood-stained fur of his hind leg, the deep gash from which the crimson liquid fell, the fact that she had its blood on her leg, and the way he lifted said foot off the ground. They knew she was the Hyuuga heiress, and to deny her an audience when she had questions would mean to deny the whole clan. They glanced at each other, nodded, then finally told the girl she could enter.

Stepping toward the door, the Hyuuga knocked softly, then beckoned Kiba forward. Upon hearing a firm "Enter," the girl opened the door and ghosted silently inside the room, the wolf's white fur an inverted shadow behind her.

"Hinata-san, to what do I owe this pleasure?" The woman at the desk questioned, looking up from the stack of papers on her desk and quickly hiding a bottle of Saké in one of the drawers. Kiba took this woman to be the Hokage. The one Hinata had refered to as 'Tsunade-sama'.

"W-well, I w-was out in the f-forest today, s-searching for some s-special herbs to make some of m-my ointment with, and I-I came across a l-large white dog. I-it was wounded r-really badly." She ushered the 'dog' forward and let Tsunade take a quick look at it.

"Well, why didn't you heal it out in the forest if you wanted to make sure it was okay?" Tsunade questioned, justifiedly so. She knew that Hinata knew a bit of medical ninjutsu, so what made her not want to use it all of a sudden?

"E-every time I a-aproached it with ch-chakra in m-my hand, it backed a-away growling. S-so I figured i-it was safer j-just to bring it back a-and let it h-heal at its own p-pace. Otherwise, though, it was p-perfectly f-friendly." As if to prove the point, Tsunade watched as the dog limped forward on unsteady paws to lick Hinata's dangling hand.

The Hyuuga girl bent down to scratch behind his ears, and his eyes closed drowsily as he licked her other palm. He was playing the part of a hurt, albeit giant, house pet very well in his opinion. It almost sickened him he was playing it so well. Toboe would have been proud.

Tsunade made sure her answer was carefully thought out before speaking. "You may keep it in Konoha until it is fully healed, does something to cause chaos in the village, or feels as though it is ready to leave. Any and all damages that may be caused by the beast are going to be on your tab and you are responsible for keeping him fed, housed, and calm. Is this clear?" Tsunade had no doubt she would be the perfect ninja to care for such a large dog. She also had no doubt that the girl knew more than she was telling, but if it was important, it would come out eventually. Besides, a simple dog was of no threat to the village, expecially with it staying in the Hyuuga compound.

"H-hai, Tsunade-sama!" Hinata smiled happily at the dog, then turned to usher it back out of the room.

"By the way, when it is outside, it is to be kept on a leash at all times." Tsunade called to the girl's retreating form, knowing for certain that she heard when her reply was a small, almost invisible wince.

When they left the tower, Hinata decided they had to find Kiba a collar and leash as soon as possible, no matter how angry that would make the poor wolf-boy. She took hold of the scruff of his neck and began to lead him down the street. Because of the wolf's height, she was able to keep her hold without having to bend or walk in an awkward position.

"We'll go to my house first, to make sure my father will let you stay with us. I'm sure he will once he learns that Hokage-sama said it was fine, but I would hate for him to find you and be angry at you for what he would think would be breaking and entering. He is a very strict man, and I just want to make sure neither of us will be in trouble, for both our sakes." Hinata confided quietly as they traversed the few blocks to the Hyuuga Compound.

The wolf made no idication that he had heard, but Hinata knew he wouldn't. She could sense his uneasiness at the prospect of being trapped with her until he was healed, in a strange place, with no one he knew. She could hardly be counted as a friend, they had barely just met.

"Ne, Hinata-chan!" A male voice called to her from somewhere behind them. Suddenly, a large white ball of fur rushed up, jumping and knocking the raven haired girl to the ground.

She shrieked a bit at the fall, but the wolf mistook the shout. He immediately paced until he could get a good shot at the dog, the headbutted him off of the girl. The dog stood and growled at him for a moment. The wolf ignored him, opting to look at Hinata with his head tilted, as if questioning whether she was without harm.

"Iie, I'm fine." She whispered to him before the dog's owner came near to give her a hand up. "K-konbanwa, Kiba-kun. A-arigatou g-gozaimasu." She spoke to the boy.

He smirked a bit. "I see that Akamaru found you before I did, now didn't he?" He laughed at her slight blush, then walked over to his ninja dog. Akamaru, the dog, was growling at the white beast beside her. "Who is that?" The boy questioned Hinata.

"T-this is a d-dog I found out i-in the f-forest. He had a c-collar with t-tags beside him. The collar s-seemed to have b-been r-ripped from his n-neck. T-the tags said h-his name was K-Kiba, and he seemed to r-respond to it, so I-I assumed t-they w-were his. I-I already g-got permission from Tsunade-sama t-to keep him until he heals, b-because he has a h-huge g-gash in his l-leg."

The boy looked down at the wolf, wondering exactly why Akamaru thought this dog to be dangerous. Despite the size, he seemed to be quite gentle, not to mention attatched to his teammate.

"Hm. Okay then. Would you like me to have someone drop by the compound later and bring you a leash and a new collar for him? I'm sure Hana wouldn't mind, but I'm a bit busy this afternoon."

"Arigatou, Kiba-kun. I would appreciate it. That would save me a trip into the village, and with his hurt leg, I'm sure he'd thank you for it also." She smiled at the dog-lover in front of her as they said their farewells and continued with a new fervor to her house.

She glanced down at the wolf-boy, who seemed to be tiring by the second. She knew he would never admit it. He seemed too prideful of that. He was like her family in that sense. They needed to finish their business quickly so he could rest.

The meeting with her father was nerve wracking, but this was not about herself by her father's choice, as it usually was. It was by her choice, for a new friend. It went well, but Kiba noticed that she had stuttered so much more than when talking with anyone else they had met today. He wondered how the man sitting before them could possibly be the father of someone so quiet, shy and kind. It left him bewildered, but family never really did click with him.

When her father had given her permission to keep him, she had smiled and thanked him quietly. The smile stuck until she was halfway out the door. "Hinata, by the way, you have to make sure he stays in your room when you're not around. I don't want him running down the halls in the middle of the day causing a ruckus." Hyuuga Hiashi stated as she walked from the room, almost successfully causing her to fall flat on her face when she froze mid-step.

She took a deep breath. "H-Hai, O-Otou-sama." She forced herself to look as normal as possible as she walked from the room and quickly hurried to her own with a blush so red that could possibly fool Sasuke into believing her head was a tomato.

Hinata was forever grateful that she had grown her hair out for the simple reason that her father could not see the back of her neck as her entire head and neck turned a bright red.

She hurried back to her room, hyper-aware of the wolf-boy by her side, with his still-injured leg. Mentally kicking herself, she realized that she should have gotten him to a place to rest before talking with her father.

Traveling down a long, bleak hallway, Hinata and Kiba moved at a quick, if somewhat easy pace (because Hinata's kind nature refused to allow her to make the wolf-boy move faster because of his injury).

She came upon the door leading to her room, and quickly led the wolf inside. She was about to let Kiba know that she was going to get some bandages when she heard a knock on her window. Turning to look out, she found Hana holding up a collar and a leash. Turning back to the wolf-boy, she told him to lay where he like while she went to greet the female Inuzuka.

She assured him she would be back momentarily, but she needn't have. Though he didn't mind company, that did not mean he was used to being in a house with many other people. He took heart in the fact that he would leave as soon as he was well.

When the girl (_Hinata_, his mind filled in) left, he decided to get his bearings and look around the room. Though he was exhausted, his blurry, heavy eyes permitted him a moment's glance before his weary legs gave out.

He knew, before he could fall into a restful slumber, he would have to take note of his surroundings. Looking around himself, he realized that Hinata had brought him to her room, easily identifiable even though he was not listening to the exchange between her and the older man with the white eyes.

The walls were a dull white, not bright enough to hurt the eyes, but not dark enough to be considered cream. There were no personal touches to the room, save for a few pictures. The rest could have been in any girl's room. Two of the pictures were placed on a white table beside the bed, one was placed on the dresser, while the final was hanging on the wall.

The picture on the wall showed a smiling young girl standing beside a woman who looked to be her mother. The two looked like almost copies of one another, save for the age difference. Kiba wondered passively in his sleep-fogged mind whether the young girl was Hinata.

In the picture on the dresser, the same girl, though older, stood with a man, the man that they had spoken with before. His hand was on the girl's shoulder, while in his other arm, he held a small, newborn child. Neither he nor the girl were smiling, even though it seemed as though the child had been born only days before. Kiba wondered why.

On the bedside table, there sat the final two pictures, of the same people, at different stages in their lives.

The first, taken in what seemed to be her tweens, was Hinata with two boys and an older woman.

The woman had coal black hair, a head band with the same symbol as Hinata, and crimson eyes. Dressed in a short, white, kimono-like outfit, she had bandages up and down her thighs and lower left and right arms. On her left arm, there was a red sleeve, while the left had none. Netting covered her chest, and she had a strained smile on her face.

The first male in the picture had a long, gray overcoat that covered most of his face, and dark glasses covering his eyes. His brown hair was cut rather short and he also wore a head band. His brown capri pants had bandages around his right thigh with a small, blue pouch on top of them. His face, was seemingly expressionless as he stood beside, though the distance between them was more than necessary, the Hyuuga female.

The other male had brown, spiky hair and eyes almost like a dog's. On both his cheeks were upside down red triangles. His gray coat was zipped, with fur around the arm holes and the hood. His black pants came down to his knees, with blue open-toed boots. At this boy's feet sat a small cream colored dog with a brown nose and light brown ears. The boy had a large smile on his face, but it seemed to be directed more to the dog than the others.

The younger female. She looked like a younger version of the girl he had spoken with in the forest. Her coat was larger, white, and fuzzy. Her figure was hidden by it. That she was more open now was obvious to him. Her pose in the picture was one of extreme shyness, almost folded in on herself, with her ever-present blush staining her cheeks a light crimson.

The final photo, the most recent, it appeared, was of the Hyuuga girl and the other three once more. This one though, was different. No longer were the four so distant. They were three years older, three years wiser, he assumed. In this picture, the dog-boy had an arm draped across Hinata's shoulder, sitting on his now almost-larger-than-him-dog. The other boy, the one with the glasses, was standing closer to the team, and one could see a partial smile on his face, though it was still mostly covered. The older woman, who's smile looked so forced in the other photo, was smiling a genuine smile, looking at the three in a motherly way.

After examining the pictures for a short time, Kiba decided to observe the rest of the room. He found the bed to be a large one, with an average sized window on her wall. The room's effect overall was a simple, yet elegant style.

The thin lavender curtains were drawn away from the open windows, billowing slightly in the spring's soft breeze. The bed's ebony frame matched the dresser's and window panes'. There were three doors of ebony wood in the room: one, the entrance/exit, the other two most likely a closet and a bathroom.

Upon taking in this information, Kiba allowed himself to fall into a restless, bloodloss-induced slumber.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hinata met the female Inuzuka at the door of the compound. "K-konbanwa, Hana-san. T-thank you for b-bringing this over. I-I really appreciate it a-and I'm sure the d-dog does too." Hinata said, greeting and thanking the girl in one breath.

Hana replied likewise. "Konbanwa, Hinata-san. Its good to see you again. Of course, I was glad to bring the leash and collar over. Doashimashite!" She said, handing over a black piece of leather: the collar. Fishing in her bag, she pulled out a gray piece of thickly woven fabric: the leash. "Sorry they don't match, they were all we could spare. Our clinic is full right now. We have this one huge dog that wandered into the village around noon today. It was only a little bit smaller than the one you found, or so Kiba-nii tells me."

Hinata looked intrigued for a moment, but her expression cleared a few seconds later, so quickly that it could have been Hana's imagination. "T-thank you again, Hana-san. I-I've got to go now to m-make sure the dog is o-okay. I'll let y-you get back t-to the clinic. Ja ne!" Hinata said, turning around after hearing Hana's goodbye and walking back into her house.

She hurried back to her room, stopping at the door and warily walking into the room. She almost laughed at the sight that met her eyes.

Kiba was sprawled out on the ground, injured side in the air, with his tongue lolling out of his mouth. His legs were bent as though he had collapsed there, but he seemed to have fallen asleep, for he did not react when she walked in the door.

Her laughter died before it even escaped, though, when she noticed that he was twitching, tossing and turning without rolling over. She was frightened that he might reopen his wound, so she decided to attempt to calm him. Carefully, cautiously, she walked toward him. Laying her palm soothingly across his head, she tried to calm him by petting it with gentle fingers.

He calmed slightly, but did not wake. When she was sure he would be okay, Hinata made her way to the dresser. Opening a drawer, she pulled out a roll of bandages. Quietly, she lay them down by the wolf's head, for when he awoke.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fire.

Fire.

Fire!

It was every where.

There was no escape from it.

Burning the trees, his pack, and worst, the flowers. Their scent was disappearing. He could smell nothing but burnt flesh and wood. The smoke was filling his lungs, their lungs, killing all oxygen they could possibly have gotten.

He saw an opening. He tried to shout for his pack to follow him, but there was no one. They followed the leader to their deaths. The fire was approaching quickly. He made to run after his pack, try to lead them to a future, not their demise.

No matter what he did, what he said, they wouldn't listen to him. They ignored every word he said. After all, who would listen to a pup when they had an experianced leader. The leader, knowing very well that he held their lives and their trust in his paws, betrayed them. He had seen the gap in the fire's wall, but led them away, trying to find a safer way, a larger gap.

The gap that the pup was trying to lead them to was but a small hole in the firey inferno. It would only be open for a short while. At the most, half the pack would have survived. Half the females and all children would have been the first to leave. Then their strongest males, the rest of the females, the rest of the males, and the leader was last. There would be no way he could make it out alive. The females and children were important to the clan's future, and would need protection. They needed both genders to survive. A leader could be replaced, but he had no wish to die an early death.

So he led them on, ignoring the pup. The rest followed him, believing him to be doing what was best for their clan. The pup watched in horror as the flames suddenly leapt, wiping half the pack out. Mothers scrambled to protect their pups, while their mates were scrambling to protect them all.

The pup, who's mother and father had already been killed, was left.

Alone.

Betrayed.

Frightened.

Scarred.

How would he survive? His pack was going to die. The heat of the fire, the smoke, everything was suddenly so much more terrifying. He had witnessed the deaths of his parents, his trusted leader's betrayal, and his pack's cold shoulder.

He was just a pup. What chance did he have of surviving? Utterly giving up, he lay down, waiting for the flames to consume him.

Suddenly the blazing heat died down. A coolness washed over his skin, comforting him in a way his mother used after a bad dream. His eyes opened to a grassy field, flowered and swaying with a gentle breeze. The terror of the dream –nightmare- washed away, and he began to sleep peacefully.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hinata stayed where she was, kneeling by the wolf-boy's head, still running her hand across his head. She knew the terror of nightmares, and of waking from one alone, only with one's thoughts to terrify oneself further.

She kept checking his leg for signs of bleeding, and found none.

As it grew dark, Kiba began to stir. His eyes blinked slightly, adjusting to being awake. The first thing he noticed was that there was something resting on his head. A something that was stroking his fur. His eyes widened as he realized there was someone in the room with him.

He jumped up, wincing when he put pressure on his injured leg. He made a quick glace over the room before focusing his attention on the other person in the room. It was the girl _–Hinata–_ he noticed in the dim light.

The room was darker now, so it must be nearing nighttime. Kiba noted this, and the fact that Hinata had yet to move. "What were you doing?" Kiba questioned, growling.

"You were having a bad dream. It was the only way I could think of to comfort you. Did I disturb you?" She spoke quietly, as though a child who was being scolded.

Kiba reflected on his dream. No, she didn't disturb him. He remembered the cool, calming feeling that had washed over him and made him realize he wasn't alone. He stayed silent, unwilling to admit this.

"Your wound is healing well." Hinata stated. "Would you like me to wrap it for you?" She gestured to the bandages that had been lying by his head.

"Why did you take it upon yourself to attempt to comfort me in a nightmare. No one would hold it against you to abandon me. Why are you doing this?" He demanded. Never before had he met such a girl. Not even the woman they had called Cher had been this kind.

Hinata tilted her head in confusion. Why would he look for a motive behind her helping him. She had none. When she saw him, injured and exhausted, she instinctively wanted to help him, so she did. But that sounded stupid, he would never believe such pitiful, weak reasoning.

"Tell me the truth. Now." Still pushing for an answer. He refused to back down. He had to know why she was doing all this for a stranger. A wolf, nonetheless.

"You won't like it." Her soft voice sounded from the growing darkness. Soon, the sun would disappear completely, leaving only the moon, stars, and the dark sky in its wake.

He growled, knowing this would happen. She had ulterior motives. She wanted to use him for something. Angry now, he opened his mouth, teeth glinting from the last rays of sunlight pervading the sky.

The girl squeaked. Looking down and letting her hair curtain around her face, she spit out the truth, for she was a horrible liar. "I do not know why I helped you. Something in me just cried out to me to assist you. I suppose you could say it was instinct. I know it's a weak argument, but I couldn't just leave you there."

It was far from a 'weak argument' to Kiba. To him, it meant trust, another person who followed instincts despite the concequences. He let his mouth close, hiding what he knew to be frightening teeth, and quit growling.

At the silence of the room, Hinata looked up, carefully glancing at his face for signs of anger or attack. Finding none, she looked puzzled. "What is it?" She questioned.

"Your answer is not a so called weak argument. If more people followed their instincts, the world would be safer for all." He stated, then stared, almost longingly, out her window.

The room was now pitch black. Hinata, aware of how much time had passed, stood to close the windows and curtains. "Iie."

The female Hyuuga turned at the sound of his voice. "Nande?"

"Don't close them."

"Aa." Understanding his love of the night, she left them open.

Kiba slowly stood, his leg stiff with blood and sleep, and walked to where the moon's light fell on the floor of the room. He lay there, resting, basking in the moonlight.

As she watched, Kiba became more peaceful, his shiftyness settling so he could finally rest peacefully. Hinata smiled, then turned to grab her pajamas, and walked to the bathroom to change. Walking sleepily back into the room, she crawled into her own bed, completely forgetting the questions she wanted to ask of him.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning when she woke, the white wolf was no where to be found. In his place lay a boy, peacefully sleeping, curled up by the window. The gash on his leg was still unhealed, and blood clung to his pants and made them like a second skin.

Quietly, so as not to wake him, Hinata grabbed some clothes to put on, walked to the bathroom to change out of her pajamas, and readied herself for the day. She then ghosted out of the room, heading to the kitchen to grab a meal for two and a bowl.

Thankfully, no one questioned her request, they just got what she asked for and left her to her reasons. Hurridly, she walked back to her room with her cargo.

Arriving at her room, she paused, wondering at how to open the door without dropping everything, when the door opened from the inside.

Kiba stood, leaning against the door frame for support. He offered no explaination of what he was doing or why he was there, and just got out of her way. She nodded, thanking him, and walked into the room. She did not ask questions, and he gave her no answers. It was a simple agreement made in those few seconds.

He made to walk over to where he had slept, but paused when he felt her touch. "I need to clean your wound before it gets infected." She said simply, giving no other reason.

He nodded almost imperceptibly, watching as she walked into the bathroom with the bowl after setting the food down.

She came back with a washcloth, bandages, and a bowl full of soapy water. She winced upon looking at the injury. "I'll need to cut away the pant leg from just above your knee. Are you okay with that?" She questioned, not wanting him to be furious for cutting them without his permission.

"Yes." His answers were so simple and easy to understand, unlike many male patients she treated at the hospital where she volunteered in order to learn the medical ninjutsu.

She set to work, grabbing a pair of fabric scissors from her nightstand drawer. Carefully, she cut the cloth away from the rest of the pants.

When her cut was finished, she carefully pried the fabric from the bloody mess that covered his leg. Some parts of it stuck, so she'd have to use water to loosen it up. Every time he'd wince, she would apologize and pause in what she was doing.

Finally pulling the cloth off his wounded leg, she found the gash was more serious than she had originally thought. The cut was ragged, and not just one, but multiple right next to each other.

She picked her washcloth up, dipped it in the water, and gently began to clean the blood away to get a better look at how to bandage and heal it. Her hands and the cloth soon began to turn a light pink from the diluted blood being washed away.

When it was finally clean, the wound looked less ghastly than it had. Standing, the girl walked back into the bathroom, leaving it with a small round container. She walked back to the wolf-boy and opened the container, letting him see the medicine she was applying to his laceration.

He did not want to let her use her human medicines on him, but it seemed he had no choice. He was lying the day before when he said he'd had worse. These were the worst yet, and he was at his limit, in no condition to protest something that would help him heal. Even he was not so prideful so as to resist help when he needed it. Something Tsume had help him realize.

Thinking of the older wolf made Kiba realize how deeply he and his pack were connected. He could feel the loss of the other three, He felt the emptiness beside him.

He was jerked from his thoughts as a stinging sensation travelled to his brain from his leg. He hissed, unable to contain the sound, for it surprised him how much it stung.

"Sorry!" Hinata squeaked.

"Its fine." Kiba said through gritted teeth.

She began to wrap the injury with skilled, gentle hands. Soon after she began, she was through. His wound was bandaged and would heal sooner than if he were alone.

As they began eating, Hinata remembered the questions she had for him the night before when she saw the collar hanging off the post of her bed. "Anou, Kiba? A-Are there more of you? You know, wolves?"

"Why?" Kiba asked, suspicious of the suddenness of such a question.

"Just tell me, onegai." Hinata pleaded.

"Yes, now tell me why." He figured it was his turn to demand an answer.

Hinata was quiet for a moment, hesitant to answer. "Yesterday. When you were asleep, you were sleep talking. You said something about everyone dying. I was curious." She said. It was only a half truth, but she was good at telling those. It was the blatant lying that got her in hot water.

Kiba was silent, the pain was evident in his eyes. Hinata felt horrible for mentioning it and causing him sorrow. "What happened to you?" She asked quietly before she could stop herself.

He turned to look at her stricken expression and red face. He debated on whether or not to answer the question. She was a stranger, a human, but she had been kind to him in a way no one had before. Deciding on a path, he told her. His past, the fire, his pack, their betrayal, everything he could remember.

He did not cry, but the desolation was obvious in his voice. Hinata had a few stray tears trailing down her face, but made no noise as he told his story.

At the end, Hinata resolved herself to help him heal and meet back up with his new pack.

"Anou, were the others of your pack with you during the battle?" Hinata asked.

"Yes. I lost them when the fighting started, though." Kiba admitted.

"I'm not positive, but I think I can help you find one of them." The Hyuuga female said, not trying to give him false hopes, but wanting to lighten his mood.

He glanced up sharply, looking for deception. He knew he wouldn't find any, not after the way she sat and listened to his entire story so silently, but he wanted to be sure. He found none, and allowed a small smile to cross his normally expressionless face. "Where?"

"With Hana-san, in her family's veteranarian clinic. She's the one who brought me a collar and leash for you. When she was explaining to me why they didn't match, she said there was a large dog, a little bit smaller than you, that wandered into the village around noon yesterday."

Kiba's eyes lit up slightly. It had to be one of his pack! He quickly finished eating, the Hyuuga female following suit.

Finishing, Hinata picked up the plates and silverware. Telling Kiba to stay in her room, she took them back to the kitchen, along with the bowl she used for cleaning Kiba's wound.

The branch members working in the kitchen greeted her kindly, taking the dishes from her and walking away to clean them without questions.

The girl hurried back to her room. She opened the door to find the boy sitting at the foot of the bed,trying to figure out how to put the collar on. Hinata chuckled slightly, making him jump and drop the leather circle.

He blushed slightly, caught doing something he would never have considered had he never met this girl. He shook off his embarrassment and handed the collar to her.

Soon, the white wolf stood before her, waiting impatiently for her to put the collar around his neck. She slipped it over his head, tightening it so it wouldn't slip off, then attached the leash to it.

She let him walk ahead of her and lead them out of the Hyuuga Compound. Out on the street, however, he walked beside her, taking cues to turn or stay straight from the angle of her body. Him being by her side, most people gave them plenty of room to walk, but every once and a while, someone would walk up to them, bow their heads, and politely ask to pet him.

Of course, she would reply with a 'yes, but we really must be going, so only for a few moments.'

That occurred very few times, though, in the long walk through the village. Most of the people bowed their heads and wanted nothing to do with them as they passed, very few even spared them more than a respectful glance.

Kiba stored this information away in his brain to question her later.

Soon, they arrived at a building with 'Inuzuka Vet. Clinic' written on the front. "This is it." Hinata said, seeming to the pedestrians to be talking to herself.

The two entered the double doors slowly, because Hinata didn't want to push their luck and reopen Kiba's wound.

Hana greeted them immediately, thinking they were coustomers, then turned and, upon seeing them, greeted them more warmly.

"Ne, Hana-san, r-remember the d-dog you were telling me a-about earlier? M-may I see it please?" Hinata asked bluntly. "I th-think it's really cool h-how these two are so much b-bigger than the others. M-maybe they know each o-other?" Hinata explained at Hana's perplexed expression.

"I'm not sure if that's such a good idea, Hinata-san. It's hurt, but every time someone approaches it, it tries to attack. I'm not sure whether it's a good idea for you –or anyone– to go in there." The older girl was worried, because if something happened to Hinata while she was under the supervision of the Inuzuka, Hana knew that the Hyuugas would be boiling with anger.

"Don't w-worry, Hana-san. I'm a k-kunoichi. I'll be fine." Hinata said reassuringly. "B-besides, if it comes d-down to an Inuzuka-Hyuuga f-feud, I'll make sure n-nothing bad happenes."

Finally, Hana sighed. "Okay. Go through the doors, down the hall, turn the corner, then enter the first door on the left. Be careful, okay?"

The Hyuuga nodded, pushing through the doors and following the Inuzuka girl's instructions.

Arriving at the door, she carefully entered, shutting it behind her. The room was somewhat small, with tables and cages lining the wall. Each cage was empty, so this dog –_maybe wolf – _was most likely ferocious. On the walls were cabinates full of bandages and medicines which would help the clan heal the animals in the room. There was a single, blue mat sitting in the corner, with something on it.

Upon closer examination, the raven haired girl found that it was whom she thought to be Kiba's friend, curled into a tight ball, as if trying to hide from pain it could not escape.

His brown fur was light, even lighter around his stomach. He was smaller than Kiba, indicating the age difference between them. Around his right forepaw, he wore three silver colored bracelets. His stomach had a gash in it, seemingly still bleeding, but Hinata hoped her eyes were wrong.

His ears perked up when the door clicked shut. His head raised, revealing caramel colored eyes. He jumped up, growling, and started to attack.

Kiba, the white furred wolf, jumped in front of her, growling in return. He spoke to the smaller one. "Toboe, stop."

The wolf, Toboe, sat back, eyes wide, as he saw the pack's leader _protecting a human_. "What are you doing, Kiba? You have always told us to stay away from the humans, and now you're protecting one of them?" He growled again.

"You can trust her, Toboe. She- it's hard to explain, but she's trustworthy." The white wolf replied, casting a sidelong glance at the girl.

"M-my name is Hyuuga H-Hinata. It's nice to meet you." She greeted the boy with a soft voice and a caring smile. Her gaze drifted to his wound. "I-I could heal that, i-if you would like."

Toboe looked from the girl to the wolf, confused, wondering if it truly was Kiba who had come to trust a human when he himself had finally begun to doubt his own trust in them.

Warily, Hinata reached out and lay her hand gently on his head.

A wall in the brown wolf's mind finally gave way, and he let his natural trust flow through him once more at her tender pat. Moving his head out from under her hand, he opened his mouth to lick her palm.

She giggled, reaching out to hug him like he was one of the Inuzuka's animals. But Toboe didn't mind. It had been a long time since he had been shown that sort of kindness.

Suddenly, the door was thrown open and a lady with wild hair and eyes like Inuzuka Kiba entered the room. The red triangles on her cheeks were creased with the worry lines marring her face. Upon seeing the Hyuuga girl, they deepened with surprise. "Hinata, how did you get it to trust you?" She asked. "When Hana told me you came back here alone, I was worried that you had gotten hurt, but here you are hugging it."

"I was right, Tsume-san, they do know each other. I'm not sure what they said, but I guess Kiba told Toboe that it was okay to trust me or something." Hinata turned, smiling at the woman with one of her arms still resting around the brown wolf's neck.

"Toboe?" Her confusion intensified.

"The dog you found. I got close enough to it to see the engraving on his bracelet. I just guessed it was his name and he responded to it." She lied convincingly.

Tsume thought for a moment, and Hinata worried that her lie had been seen through. When she spoke, though, her doubts were laid to rest. "Would you consider taking care of this dog too? You are the only one whom he'll let approach it. We need this room to help other animals, but we can't just turn him out on the street, and we can't leave it with other dogs. We tried that once, and he just attacked everyone in reach."

"My father would never allow it." Hinata said forlornly. "Otherwise, I would love to."

Tsume stood with a thoughtful look. "I'll be back in a few moments, Hinata-san." She disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"That was Kiba-kun's mother, Inuzuka Tsume." The Hyuuga girl explained to the wolves.

Toboe turned to Kiba with his head tilted curiously. The white wolf's attention was focused on Hinata and did not notice him, but the girl did. "Not this Kiba. My friend's name is also Kiba and that was his mother." She explained serenely.

A small 'poof' of air, causing white smoke to enter the room, carried Tsume back with it. "Hokage-sama wants to see you Hinata-san. You can leave the white dog here for a little while, until you can come back for him."

The girl stood, lay her palms on each wolf's head, and gently scratched behind their ears. "I'll be back in a little bit, okay?" She spoke as she hurried from the room at Tsunade's request.

She walked purposefully through the village to meet with the Hokage in her office. When she arrived, she found the woman awaiting her presence.

The moment the Hyuuga girl closed the door, the woman at the desk began to speak. "I am assigning you a mission. The Inuzuka veterinary clinic is almost full to bursting, as I'm sure you know. They are in desperate need of the room that is currently housing a large dog with a ferocious attitude, as I'm sure you have been told."

Hinata nodded each at each point she deemed necessary, already knowing where the woman was heading with her mission.

The Hokage continued, though she knew the girl was sharp and knew the mission's point. "The dog can hardly be let loose around the village, allowed to wreak havoc among my people, and the Inuzukas do not want to kill it. Tsume gave me some rather interesting information on how to fix this situation though." There, the woman ended her sentence, noting the thoughtful look on the Hyuuga heiress' face.

The girl opened her mouth and began a stuttering sentence. "Hokage-sama, I-I hate to b-be so blunt, but F-Father would never a-allow me to bring s-so many animals into his h-house. He c-can barely tolerate K-Kiba-kun and Akamaru, and was u-unhappy letting me k-keep the dog I am c-currently caring for. H-He would never consent t-to let them both s-stay."

The sannin sighed deeply, yet inaudibly. She hoped the Hyuuga leader would be tolerant of animals, but she supposed there was a reason they never kept pets. This only meant she was going to have the mission agreed to the hard way. "Hinata-san, what if I allow you to stay at the Hokage Tower, in a guest room, while you care for the animals? The rent would be free, and you would be given money for their care. You would also be paid, for this is a mission."

She watched as the girl's eyes lit up, finally seeing a way that she could help her village in a time when they were short on needs within her limits. "I-I will accept this m-mission, b-but what shall I-I tell my f-father?" She wondered.

"Tell him I've given you a mission, hand him this scroll, and tell him you'll be at the Tower if he needs you." Tsunade bluntly stated, handing her the aforementioned scroll with the mission details within.

The Hyuuga girl nodded, and spun on her heel to leave the office of the intimidating Lady Hokage. She swiftly ran back to the Hyuuga Compound, knocked on her father's study, and entered when he bade her to.

"F-Father, Hokage-sama has assigned m-me a mission. I will be staying a-at the Hokage T-Tower if you need t-to speak with me." She spoke, lying the scroll on his desk in front of him. Then she bowed with respect to her father, wished him well, and left with a soft goodbye.

She was glad to have the chance to leave the oppressive Hyuuga Compound after a few seemingly long weeks without missions. Delighted to get away, she rushed back to the Inuzuka clinic to pick up the two 'dogs'.

Hana and Tsume bid her a warm welcome, aware that the girl was helping them with their business. "Arigatou gozaimisu, Hinata-san. If you need anything, just call us." Hana said, handing another leash and coller, for Toboe, to the girl before her.

"I will, don't worry." Hinata smiled amiably back at them, before going to pick up the wolves and lead them to their new sanctuary.


	4. The Pack is Reunited

**(A/N: Okay. So. Chapter 4. Hopefully I can keep this short so y'all won't have to keep waiting on me to write the next chapter. This is really different from my normal style of writing, cause there's not much talking in it. All the characters that I'm borrowing for the story are so quiet, they don't talk much at all. I usually write with a lot more dialogue than this, so it's difficult to get things done quickly. Gomen.)**

Chapter 4

She left Hana and her mother standing at the door, waving. Beside her, on either side, were Kiba and Toboe. Both were looking worse for wear. Kiba's injury was still paining him, though less than before. Toboe's injury, however, was a cause for much more concern. Both he and Hinata would shoot glances his way, trying to gauge how badly he was hurt, but Toboe was determined not to show any weakness.

During the battle, Toboe had gotten seperated from his pack because of the confusion surrounding all battles. He was the first to go missing from his group, and he was also the youngest and least experienced in fighting.

He panicked, dodging blows this way and that, hoping without hope that he would somehow find his pack. This proved to be futile; he was hit with a seemingly glancing blow on the stomach. Maneuvering through the warriors and away from the battle field, Toboe suddenly began to feel weak. Just as he aproached a large structure, seemingly gates to a village, his paws fell out from under him and he collapsed into a puddle of blood: his blood.

He tried to calm his racing heart, knowing if he didn't it could spell his end. _How did this happen?_ He asked himself. He searched for the answer, wondering how he could have gotten hit. Then he remembered the blow he had received. He hadn't thought it was that deep.

Before his eyes closed and his consciousness slipped away, he thought he heard a gasp. He tried to stand, but found he couldn't even lift his eye lids. Then everything disappeared.

When he awoke, he realized he had been some how taken into a large building, almost like a hospital. But there were only animals within it. He carefully took note of his surroundings as he had seen Kiba do so many times.

There were bars in front of him, thick steel, and there was no way he could escape in his weakened state. He became worried of what would happen to him now that he was alone and caged.

When the door opened, he violently jerked his head toward the figure. The silhouette approached his cage, readying to open it.

He observed the person. Smooth brown hair, pale skin, and upside down triangles on her cheeks. Two locks of brown hair framed her face. Her black eyes were warm with pity, it seemed. Her white coat had a high collar, zipped all the way up, yet it did nothing to cover her concentrated frown.

They did so, and Toboe had taken his chance to escape. He leapt from the box, knocking the person down in the process. Fleeing to the other side of the room, he growled ferociously, snapping at the hand that drew near him.

Finally, the person sighed, giving up, and left the room, warily watching her back to make sure he didn't attack her while she was vulnerable.

From there, the hours passed in a painful haze. People came and went, delivering food and water, but none approached. No one spoke a word in his presence, fearful of waking him from the haze and incurring his wrath.

Eventually, the door opened more hesitantly, and a girl entered the room. Warily, she approached Toboe. He immediately jumped to his feet, letting out a violent growl, and readying to leap at her. He didn't see the white creature that walked in with her.

Just as he was about to snap at her fingers, he heard a voice that broke through his pain filled mind. It was that of Kiba, his pack leader. Whiping his head to look at the wolf, he found his ears to be telling the truth and he was ever so relieved, yet surprised to see the older boy protecting a _human_.

When the woman had come in and told her that the Hokage would like to see her, the girl had left, with a promise that she would be back. When all the humans had left the room, Toboe finally asked the question that had been nagging at him since Kiba had protected the girl.

The white wolf explained all that had transpired since the battle had ended, and the small brown wolf shook his head in amazement. He marveled at how lucky the girl had been to escape her death that way, then offer to help his pack leader in such a way. He wondered where that would lead them.

Hinata had made sure to grab her emergency mission pack from her house before she left, and she was extremely glad she did. There was nothing but basic furniture in the apartment that Tsunade had lent to her for the mission.

In her pack, she always made sure to carry two spare changes of clothing, pajamas, a towel and wash cloth, soap, a few weapons, four rolls of gauze, and some containers of her special ointment. The Hyuuga heiress could tell she would need the medical equipment by the time they had settled in.

She approached Toboe slowly, still wary of him being a wolf, but trusting him not to hurt her. The girl knelt down by his stomach and began to speak. "I will need to clean and wrap your wound if you would like it to heal quicker so you may be on your way." She said in her whispery soft voice.

Toboe nodded his head. "Will my fur be in your way? Or would you prefer me to stay a wolf?" He asked, curious as to how she would help him.

"I-It would be easier if y-you were a human, b-but that w-would r-require y-you to t-take o-o-o-off y-your sh-sh-irt." She stuttered, blushing deeply when she finally got the words out of her mouth. She was accustomed to helping patients older and younger that her by many years with stomach wounds, but never had anyone so close to her in age needed her help before. She was embarrassed to have to tell him he'd need to take his shirt off in front of her, but he seemed content with just getting rid of his pain.

She hovered fretfully over him as she tried to remove his shirt without further injuring the boy. Carefully, she peeled it away from his body, trying not to blush. The Hyuuga girl instructed Kiba to go to the kitchen area to find a bowl, then fill it with water and bring it back.

Having done this, the boy wolf sat back on his heels and watched the process she used on him, with an outside view this time. He watched her skillful, gentle hands clean the younger boy's wound before an infection made its way to harm him further. The progress was slow, for the dried blood was almost impossible to remove without causing Toboe pain, but they progressed all the same. The water had to be replaced twice because it had been turning red with so much blood.

Finally, she reached into her pack and pulled out a roll of gauze. She wrapped his injury tenderly, making sure not to reopen it, then pressed the end of the roll gently into his side, making sure it stuck, before telling him he could move.

"W-we'll go shopping tomorrow to find you a new shirt. I'll tell anyone who sees us that I'm just getting a head start on my Christmas shopping." She was getting over her embarrassment, but some still lingered, most likely causing the return of her stutter, Kiba noted. He wondered why this girl fascinated him so. Was it because of the seemingly unconditional acceptance she had of his kind, or was it something else?

He had no time for such questions now. He needed to focus on getting well so he and Toboe could leave in search of the rest of their other pack members. If they were all as injured as he and the younger wolf had been, then time was of the esscence, or one of them could die. He shivered slightly, not from cold, but from fear of loosing another friend that he cared for.

Hinata was also watching him. She noticed his shiver, stood, and slowly wrapped her arms comfortingly aroun his furry neck. The white wolf's yellow eyes seemed broken, saddened by thoughts she could only imagine, given his past. She knew he needed someone, and her body moved to hug him of its own accord. She was glad it had, though, when she saw some of the pain lift, and he relaxed in her arms.

Toboe nudged her arm, and she encircled both of them in a hug, something both had been denied for far too long, if what Kiba said was correct. "I'll help you become reunited with your pack. As soon as you both are well enough to walk without pain, we'll make it a point to go for long walks in the forest, just to search for them. Okay?"

_It seems she can read minds after all._ Kiba's mouth lifted slightly in a grin, picturing their meeting and his accusations. He and Toboe nodded, their heavy hearts lightening with the help of the young woman.

Three days later, the wolves were on their feet. Not yet completely healed, but well enough to go on long, albeit slow, walks through the woods.

When the Hyuuga heiress woke that morning, she cooked breakfast for the three of them. Just because she lived in a house where servants cooked their meals, did not mean she was unable to cook her own food. She was the cook for their team when they went on missions together because they liked her food.

The two wolves awoke to the delicious smell of onigiri. Though they had only met three days before, Hinata and Toboe had formed a bond with each other that neither had experienced before. It was as though they were siblings; Hinata had never been close to her sister, and Toboe had never had any family other than the older lady who took care of him when he was a pup. Their sibling bond was strong, not about to be broken, even if they had only met a short while ago.

Hinata and Kiba, on the other hand, had a deeper bond. Neither could describe it. Both felt the overwhelming need to help the other through their pain, but neither he nor she could explain why. They blamed instinct.

Following breakfast, the Hyuuga heiress unwrapped their wounds, reapplied her ointment, and rewrapped them, deeming that each could withstand an easy-paced walk through the forest.

Across the village they walked, passing through the gate and into the forest beyond. They meticulously made their way into the deep forest, where the trees grew together so compactly they were forced to move in single file, wolf-human-wolf, to get through.

Kiba, the leader of their diminutive party, was the first to notice a dissimilarity in their environment. He percieved the sound of jagged breathing and a softer, more even breath that was overlapped by the heavy breaths.

He raised his nose in the air, taking in profound gulps of air as he attempted to put a name to what it was he smelled. _My comrades!_ He ultimately realized. "I smell Tsume and Hige." He stated aloud for the benefit of the Hyuuga girl and Toboe.

The girl instantaneously stopped moving, holding her hands in front of her to form a hand sign. "Byakugan!" Her whispered voice carried to the wolves.

"What are you doing?" Toboe questioned with minute alarm upon seeing the veins in her eyes raise as her pupils grew more distinct.

"I am in a squadron of tracker ninja, and this ability, my Byakugan, is what aids me in my missions. It will be much easier to locate your pack members using my eyes and your nose than by smell alone." She stated.

Kiba turned to her with wide eyes. "You are a ninja?"

"Many people in my village took up such occupation." She replied. "I come from a family of them."

"Then that is how you were almost able to escape me when we first met. And we have been staying in a village full of them?" He was unable to believe his ears, but they had never lied to him before…

The girl nodded, wondering why it meant so much to the wolf boy. "Then, if we had been found out, your people could have killed us swiftly."

Again, she nodded. "But I would have stood in their way, so they would have hesitated enough for you to run far from here."

He accepted this answer as the end of their conversation, prefering to focus on finding his friends before too much harm came to either of them. "I need to find the rest of my pack."

Hinata nodded, accepting this change of topic. Concentrating deeply on one specific point neither wolf could see, she pointed out the change in direction, shortening their search.

They traveled onward, twisting their way through the forest under the Hyuuga heiress' jurisdiction. Within the span of thirty minutes, they had located the place where Hige and Tsume were resting.

Kiba and Toboe immediately rushed toward the location of the two, but Hinata held back. Something was wrong with one of them. She could see the blood with her Byakugan, but the wolves had left her before she could warn them of this detail. She pulled off her pack, digging in it for her water bottle and wash cloth, knowing it would be needed. The girl also pulled from her pack more gauze and ointment.

A howl drew her attention to the four wolves. The three well ones had croweded around a grey wolf with a scarred 'X' on his chest was laying at their feet. His face had multiple small cuts on it, and while none of them were a problem, the one on his upper arm was. It had dried blood surrounding the rough edges, with blood still oozing around the opening. The skin in the region of the gash was raised and brown-ish yellow, a sure sign of an infection.

The Hyuuga girl hastily approached the four, carrying the necessary items to heal him with her. She knelt down by his arm, ignoring the looks of surprise from the three others around her, and set to work.

She knew she had to work fast if she were going to save his life. He had been out here for far too long without medical attention.

As she worked to clean the area around the wound, he turned to his human form.

Before her lay a man with hair, matching that of the wolf, and cut neat and short, as though he had once been in the military, with none hanging raggedly in his golden eyes, which were squinted in pain. His outfit immediately dislodged that opinion from all who looked further than his face. The tight, black leather vest he wore covered his chest, shoulders, and back, but did nothing to cover his lower torso, leaving the small of his back and his stomach area uncovered. Underneath, he wore a tight grey tank top, only visible where the V-neck vest was unbuttoned. His arms were covered in the same black leather as his upper body, but left a slight gap in between the end of the sleeves and the start of his vest.

The material of his pants was the same as his outer clothes and covered his body from hips to ankles tightly. A belt was threaded through the loops of the pants. His black shoes showed nothing of his feet, but met the pants in an almost seamless gesture, leaving no skin showing through the transition.

The girl did not notice his pained golden eyes observing her, for she was absorbed in her work, diligently cleaning the dried blood away. When he growled, she still did not move, though her hands began working slower so he could see them, and she began explaining what she was doing.

He knew she was human. He knew he should be attacking her. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he called out to his friends to stop her from touching him. But wherever she touched, the burning pain of his injury washed away.

The green light she emitted from her hands was slowly seeping into his skin, washing the infection in clensing chakra. She sighed when she felt his delusional fever begin to lower, when his body began functioning more properly now that it was no longer focused on fighting the infection, when he finally began to relax. When the pain had completely receeded, she was panting slightly, but feeling accomplished.

She reached behind her to stand up so she could retrieve her gauze, only to find it handed to her by Kiba. She smiled her thanks at him and sank back into her work, wrapping it carefully around the tan skin of his right bicep.

Sighing as she finished, she stood on wobbly legs. She would have fallen had Kiba and Toboe not come to support her. "What did you do to him that exhausted you so? Was it that green light you made in your hands?" Toboe questioned wonderingly.

"Hai. I used my medical ninjutsu to push back his infection. That way, by the time we get him home, I will have had proper rest. Then, I will be able to apply my ointment to the wound to heal it all the way.

"My medical ninjutsu stamina is poor, so could not completely heal it, but he will live. If I were much later, he might not have. We both just need a little rest before we can move anywhere." Her weight was dropped on both boys' shoulders suddenly.

Kiba worriedly lifted her head up, and she blinked wearily at them. "Fighting infections is incredibly straining. I will be alright." She whispered before her head dropped to her chest as she lost consciousness.

Toboe took a worried glance at her before running to Tsume, who was beginning to awaken. He wanted to make sure Tsume did not attack Hinata when he had fully awakened.

The grey wolf-boy groaned. "What happened?" He looked around the forest, passively glancing at each face before moving on – then paused. He looked at the midnight haired girl in Kiba's arms, for he had yet to put her down.

The white wolf-boy caught his questioning look, returning it with nothing but an empty one, being sure to keep neuteral. Tsume took his expression in and decided not to ask.

Toboe was the one who finally spoke after observing the exchange. He explained all that had happened to them, Kiba throwing in small bits of information here and there, though they ended at the point when they had met Hinata.

"Why is **she** here? I thought you had a profound doubt of humans." The grey wolf spoke with narrowed eyes.

The white one responded with eyes just as narrow. "There is an exception now. When she awakens she can explain things herself."

"You should just be thankful she was here, Tsume. She saved your life." Toboe interrupted. "Before she passed out, she said that you would have died if she didn't heal you."

Tsume shot the boy a skeptical glance, but that changed to surprise when the other two nodded their heads in agreement. "I'll have to introduce myself to her then. Just to see what is so special about her that she would help wolves."

"The people here aren't like the ones at home. They're a lot nicer and I don't think anyone has even seen a wolf before. Surely they don't kill our kind here."

"Toboe, just because they haven't seen us before doesn't mean they won't kill us when we do meet."

"She said you both need to rest, so shut up and sleep, Tsume." Kiba said forcefully.

Glad for the lapse in conversation, all four sank to the ground, Kiba unconsciously still holding onto Hinata with gentle hands.

A few short hours later found three wolves and a human girl slowly waking from sleep, while one sat over them, watching for danger while holding the human lightly.

She fully awakened, then blushed a tomato red before scrambling away from the white wolf-boy. "W-what happened?" She questioned, blush spreading from her face down to her neck.

"You passed out after healing Tsume's infection. So we stayed here and let you both rest. Hige and Toboe also slept, so I kept guard."

"What if some of my friends came out here and saw us?" She asked, worried for the safety of the four wolf-boys.

"They would have seen you sleeping with your head on the stomach of a white dog, with three other dogs surrounding you." He could see the relief in her relaxing posture.

She tensed again when she remembered that Tsume was still injured. "And Tsume? Is he alright?"

Kiba nodded. The other three were awake now, and staring at them. "Would you like to introduce yourself to the rest of my pack?"

She nodded, then bowed formally before the two pack members whom she had yet to meet properly. "My name is Hyuuga Hinata, ninja of Konohagakure. It is a pleasure to meet a pack of such men as yourself." Putting into play all her knowledge of proper greetings she had learned from her family, she hoped she made a good impression on the two.

For the first time, she noticed the features of the wolf refered to as Hige.

He was was a brown wolf with a leather collar around his neck. He changed into a human when she cast her eyes upon him, for he knew that she was aware of this secret. Considering that Kiba trusted her enough to let her come search for he and Tsume led Hige to believe that she was trusted. Therefore, he also trusted her, because he trusted his pack leader's judgement.

His shaggy light brown hair, red-amber eyes, and quick-to-appear smile gave him an easy going apperance. His collar hung loosly around his neck and over the top edge of his tan-ish yellow, short sleeved jacket. There was a pocket on the front, and one on each of his sides for his pale hands to fit into. Underneath, he wore a long sleeved black t-shirt that covered the forearms left bare by the jacket. His light blue colored drawstring pants had a darker blue stripe traveling from top to bottom on each side, down to where it met the end of each leg of the pants. His grey tennis shoes completed the outfit, making it seem as though he truly were a human.

He nodded his greeting to her, as did Tsume. They were not sure what to make of such formalities. "Uh, I'm Hige, and this is Tsume." The dark brown wolf-boy introduced, motioning to Tsume when his name was mentioned. "It's, um, also nice to meet you?"

The ending sounded more like a question than a statement, and Hinata giggled at the fact. "It is okay. You do not have to bother with formalities. I know you were never taught them. Kiba has told me much about you, it is an honor to finally meet. I'm sorry it had to be under such dire circumstances." She smiled a genuine smile before looking to Tsume. "How are you feeling? I passed out before I could wrap your wound; would you like me to do so now?"

The grey wolf gave a ferocious growl. "Why would I consciously let a human being touch me?" He spoke with a narrow eyed glare.

Hinata, however, was unfazed. She calmly answered his rhetorical inquiry. "Because you, like Kiba and Toboe, know your limits. After passing through a life-threatening situation, you need help, as much as your pride hates to admit. Every injured wolf of your pack has accepted their need for help, and let me heal them. Not using my chakra, but using regular medicine and bandages. Where would your pride be if you were dead?" She questioned, almost echoing the words Hige had spoken to Kiba when they had first met.

Hige and Kiba both sharply turned their heads upon hearing her last statement, while Tsume's eyes widened slightly. He still looked extremely reluctant and angry, but finally agreed to let her begin wraping his wound.

Soon, after much wincing and apologizing, the five were ready to head back to their temporary home in Konoha. Tsume was loath to trust the human girl, but he had worked with humans before, so he was determined not to be left behind and called a coward.

Upon closing in on Konoha, Toboe and Kiba once again became wolves in body, bowing their heads and allowing their collars to slide over their heads. Tsume and Hige watched in awe, knowing how hated those contraptions were by the white wolf.

The Hyuuga heiress wrapped both leashes around her wrists, then reached to grasp the skin at their neck to keep a seemingly firm, yet actually light, grip on them. "We must walk into the village like this, otherwise, we would scare the villagers." She explained the unasked question.

Tsume growled, but grudgingly allowed the girl to lead the pack into an unknown village full of humans. "Kiba and Toboe have been staying with me for almost a week now, and neither of them have been injured in the slightest while under my care, so do not worry, Tsume. I will make sure none of my fellow villagers harm you. I have great pull in this place, so they will listen." She explained, putting many of Tsume's doubts at rest. He had never before met anyone so in tune with others that she could put her finger so acurately on his worries.

He decided that these upcoming days may not be so terrible after all.

**(A/N: Okay. Chapter four is over, and I'm thinking that the story will end within the next two to three chapters. Hopefully. There will probably be a time skip in the next chapter. As I said before, its really hard to write characters that don't talk much. I always end up making them talk **_**way**_** more than they really do in the shows. But I hope I haven't gotten them too far out of character. If I have, I apologize. Hope you like this chapter. ^-^ It's almost 11 o'clock at night now. That's not all that late, but I type much better at night than I do in the day because I'm so much more awake now than when its sunny.**

**I'm weird. I know. That's just the way I work though. My best work is when I'm alone, listening to music, in the dark. That's also when I'm most awake… I dunno why. Anyway, if you liked it, please review. If you didn't, tell me what you didn't like so I can improve, please. Ja ne!)**


	5. A New Twist

**(A/N: Hey! Chapter 5 is here! **** I know y'all are thinking 'finally', but I've been super busy lately. Last weekend, I went to my state's capital with my youth group and we had a ton of fun. We went on a picture scavenger hunt and had a band come play for us and the place had a ton of stuff to do…. Anyway.**

**Angel-of-Hell****: lol My best friend calls me a vampire. o.O I apparently only pick up my phone at night, and so, therefore, I am a vampire. I work best in the night…..Wonder if I'll sparkle if I walk outside in the sunlight? XD **

**blackwolf of pardise.****: I've never heard of Misao, and I don't watch or read Kinshin, so I'm afraid I can't do any crossovers with them. :/ I'm sorry. But if you check my profile you can see some of the mangas/animes I do read/watch and I could try to do a crossover with two if them.)**

**Chapter 5**

The five quickly maneuvered their way back through the forest toward the village. When the gates came into sight, Hinata took the precaution of making it look like she was gripping Tsume and Hige's fur more tightly than she was, knowing how reluctant the guards would be to allow her into the village with for 'dogs' such as the ones she was with.

They passed through with no problems, save for the staring of the guards and other villagers around them.

They arrived at the Hokage Tower among several frightened glances and a large space between her and all the other villagers. All were reluctant to approach the Hyuuga heiress with such large dogs around her, thinking they were trained to protect her, maybe a precaution from her father.

The raven haired girl entered the building with ease, awkwardly climbing the stairs while still keeping a loose hold on her four compainions. The five made their way to the Hokage's office, to report the addition of two more 'dogs' to the pack being cared for.

Upon gaining enterance to the room, Hinata introduced the two newest members of her pack with stuttering words, making up a different excuse for knowing each one's name.

Kiba took this moment to analyze the woman at the desk. She wore her blonde hair in long pig-tails falling down her back. She wore robes that Kiba assumed signified that she was the Hokage, leader of Konoha. There was a small purple diamond on her forehead, with golden eyes accentuating its color. Her nails were painted a redish color, and her fingers were slim. She looked around the age of twenty, but Hinata had confided in him that she hid her real age. Technically, she was fifty years old.

The look on the blonde woman's face showed her disbelief, but either the Hyuuga girl did not realize it, or she chose to ignore it. Kiba liked to think she was simply ignoring the disbelief written across the older woman's face, because he was accutely aware of how well the Hyuuga could read others emotions.

Tsunade could not afford to get on the wrong side of the Hyuuga clan, thereby, she could not question the young girl as to what she was hiding. Nothing fit together properly. All four knew each other, and there was some clue as to each one's name? There was little chance of finding out just one of their names. All of them was out of the question. _There is something that she is hiding. Something is wrong here, and I am in no position to ask what._ She knew her incredulity had shown on her face, and she knew that the girl had picked up on it. Tsunade knew that Hinata was a loyal leaf ninja, so there was no doubt that she had learned of something village-threatening and was hiding it.

The woman puzzled over this as the heiress finished speaking. "Hinata-san, it has come to my attention that the villagers are quite frightened of your wild pets. They are ferocious looking and I have yet to see one person approach you when you are with them."

"W-what is w-wrong, Tsunade-sama?" Hinata cursed her stuttering, for the millionth time. She could never get a coherent word out when talking to most of the people in her life. She wondered why it was so different with the wolves.

The blonde woman sighed. "I'm going to have to ask you to move to a cabin just outside the gates. Someone will always be within hearing distance, should something happen, but we just cannot have these mutts potentially running through the village frightening my people. I will not allow the safety and comfort of their homes to be destroyed, only to be replaced with fear and uncertainity.

"I have told your father such, and though he may dislike the arrangement, he has agreed to let me move you from the Hokage Tower.

"Before you go, though, I would like you to get two more leashes from Hana-chan. I would also like to tell you that if you know anything that has the potential to threaten my village, and you do not tell me, then you will be guilty of treason. I believe you know this, but I just thought I should remind you. I trust your judgement on this matter, but you and I both know you are not telling me the whole truth. You are dismissed." The older woman handed her a small, rust-brown key before turning her back to the heiress.

The heiress turned and walked from the room. She knew where the cabin was, how to get there, and how far away it was. Her body was running on auto-pilot. Having the Hokage say that to her face was frightening. Hinata didn't know whether to be complimented that the Hokage trusted her judgement, or insulted at the insinuation that she could be a traitor, so she chose to feel nothing, hoping to push the problem to the back of her mind.

The wolves, keen on the emotional turmoil she was facing, kept quiet until they arrived at the cabin. They knew she had forgotten to pick up the extra collars, but they were content to let her rest and wait for the shock to wear off before they reminded her. Neither of the two newly-reunited wolves wanted to be forced to wear one anyway, for that was how they percieved that the girl had gotten Kiba into the collar.

The girl approached the cabin, drawing out the key she had been given and sliding it into the equally rust-browned lock. Opening the door with a high pitched squeal that had them all cringing, the five walked hesitantly into the slightly dusty wood cabin, with Hinata leading the way and Kiba bringing up the rear.

Looking at their new 'home', Kiba began to scout out the rooms. The entrance was a large room with a kitchenette in the right corner closest to the door. The appliances were black, and there was a small window above the sink, which was six feet away from the door. A microwave sat on the ocean blue countertop, between a stove and a toaster oven. A blender was sitting off to the side under a clear plastic cover, along with a coffee pot. At the place where the walls met, a refrigerator was standing beside a cabinet filled with dishes, pots, and pans.

In the middle of the room sat a large, plush, blue couch facing the back wall. Along the side walls were other, slightly smaller blue sofas. A few feet behind the largest couch sat a ornately carved wooden dining set, with six seats surrounding a rectangular mahogany table.

Bookshelves covered what was left of the walls, each filled to the brim with books. Wondering at why anyone would keep a mostly-abandoned cabin stocked with such modern items, Kiba missed the two doors branching off from the main room.

He heard the creak of a door and swung around to see who had followed them into the house. He saw nothing but a closed door. Kiba puzzled for a moment, sure he had heard the creak of an opening door.

The white wolf turned back around to see Toboe motioning for him to go toward a door that was nearly hidden between two bookcases.

They entered a new room, virtually as large as the last one. In it, a bed with burgandy sheets lay beside more mahagony, this time in the form of two side tables. At the foot of the bed was a chest with an open lock, the key sitting forgotten on the ground nearby. Curtains, off white in color, were billowing in the wind from the window that had been opened by Hinata to air the cabin out.

A door, probably leading to a small closet, was located at the far side of the room, directly in front of the one they had entered from. Taking care to note all the details of the room this time, Kiba noticed another door, nearly camouflaged, in the shadows.

He approached, sniffing warily at it. There was no one behind the door, so he, as a human, grasped the handle and turned it, revealing a small bathroom.

Satisfied that there was nothing dangerous behind it, the boy nodded and shut the door once more.

Mere minutes later, the five met back in the entrance room to report what they found to one another. While the wolves had been exploring the bedroom, Hinata had decided that after opening the windows all over the house, she would explore the other room.

She warily cracked open the door to the room, aware that the cabin was only cleaned about once a month as an easy mission for the newly formed gennin teams. She scanned the area inside the room.

Upon finding nothing, she opened the door fully. This was a bedroom also. It was a perfect mirror to the one on the other side of the cabin, save for the coloring, which was a light teal.

Hinata back-tracked into the main room to talk with the wolves as to how they were planning to divvy up the rooms. She noted that they were still exploring the other bedroom, so the girl decided to stand by the window. The weather that day was beautiful, and there were plenty of light, fluffy clouds in the sky for Shikamaru to watch. The heiress giggled slightly at the thought of the lazy nin. It never ceased to amaze her that the laziest of the Rookie nine was also the smartest.

The four beasts chose that moment to walk into the large room after closing the windows once more. The Hyuuga girl came away from the window, looking them over with disapproval. "You four got yourselves dusty. Now I am going to have to clean your wounds again."

She walked to where she dropped her backpack by the door when they had first walked in to the cabin. The girl pulled out multiple wash clothes, bandages, and a bottle of bacterial cleanser. Then, she made her way to the kitchen area, grabbed a bowl, rinsed it out, and finally, filled it with cool, clear water.

She approached Kiba first, him having been the one whom had his wound cleaned longest ago. She reapeated the process from earlier that day first on him, then Toboe, and finally Tsume.

Hige watched her in fascination. No human being had ever been able to tame a wolf, but it seemed as though she had power over them that not even their families had been granted. Never had the boy-wolf seen Kiba –or Tsume for that matter – bow so easily to the whims of a human girl.

Cheza had been the only girl to whom they would listen, but she was not human. This experience was an entirely new phenomonon.

The girl finished, leaving them to divide the rooms. Toboe was to take the maroon bedroom, since he was the youngest, and Hinata was to be given the other one, since she was a girl. The other three wolves would sleep on the couches in the main room. If anyone were to knock on the door, one of them would wake Hinata and she would then answer the door, with the four wolves sleeping on the floor, instead of men stretched on the sofas (and a boy in a different room).

When the sleeping arrangements were sorted out, Hinata decided to dust the rooms, since they all had a fine layer of dust coating most of the flat surfaces.

As she was working, the dust began to float in the air, clogging the air and making it hard to breathe. "You four need to stay as wolves for these next few hours. I need to open the windows once more to get rid of some of this dust and I would hate for anyone to walk by here and see you." The wolves nodded obediantly, knowing they had little choice. She smiled as she went about the house, opening windows as she walked past them.

Later that evening, after the Hyuuga girl had finished dusting, they decided to leave the windows open to continue airing out their residence.

They were lounging in the main room, the Hyuuga girl talking animatedly to the wolves, telling a story of a mission she on which she went with her gennin team. Suddenly, a knock sounded through the room from the open door.

Hinata whipped toward the door, ready to face an intruder, before noticing who it was. She then bowed slightly and began stuttering an apology. "G-Gomen n-n-nasai."

"Hinata-sama, your father sent me here to check on you and make sure you settled in well." The man standing in the doorway had long chocolate brown hair and pale white eyes similar to the Hyuuga heiress' own. He wore the ceremonial robes of the Hyuuga Clan, signifing that he was from the girl's clan. The boy wore bandages around his forehead, covered by the same headband the other ninja of Konoha wore. "May I ask why you speak to these beasts as though they understand you, Hinata-sama?"

"I-I-I was g-getting tired of the s-silence. I s-spent all day c-cleaning the h-house in s-silence, a-and I f-figured whether they c-could u-understand m-me o-or n-not, telling a-a story w-would b-be better than j-just sitting h-here s-staring a-at them. W-Would y-you like s-some t-t-tea, N-Neji-nii-san?" Hinata cursed the return of her stutter as Neji nodded. She wished she could talk with her cousin without making a stuttering fool out of herself. The girl had told him she would change, yet there had been no difference in her. She sighed before standing up to put a kettle of water on the stove.

As the water began to heat, the two began a conversation. At first, Neji was mainly the only one talking, but as their time together grew longer, the Hyuuga heiress relaxed slowly and began to talk also. The girl's stutter gradually disappeared, until it was completely gone without her notice. The kettle had steamed long ago, and now they were sitting on a couch that was unoccupied by the wolves, sipping the quickly cooling tea and talking about whatever they could think of.

It was one of those rare moments where Hinata was completely at peace with herself. Both were enjoying their time together so much that the time for the girl to change the wolves' bandages came and went, and it was nearing sunset by the time Neji finally realized the time. "I need to be going, Hinata-sama. I will check up on you sometime later on this week. Stay safe and complete your mission to the best of your abilities." She nodded as he bowed low before walking out of the house and shutting the door behind him.

The girl stood and began to walk about the house shutting all the windows to keep the night's chill from getting to them.

When she entered the main room once more, she had four questioning human gazes lingering on her face. "That was my cousin, Neji."

"Why does he treat you with such respect if you are cousins?" Hige questioned.

"My family is," here she paused. "It's complicated. Some of the family are like servants, while others are the masters. My cousin and I are from opposite ends of this spectrum, so it is forced on us this way. It doesn't matter whether we like it or not."

The wolves nodded, sypathetic, but not pitying. They did not understand it fully, but neither would they pry. She was sure not to have understood some things they had told her, yet she had not pried, so they would return the favor.

Tsume readjusted himself on the couch, groaning as he moved his injured arm. Hinata jolted forward. "Oh my goodness! I completely forgot to change your bandages again!" She jumped from her seat and ran to gather her supplies.

When she had finished, she sighed in relief. Nothing had happened to the injuries to make them any worse. If she had allowed the dirty wraps to stay on all night, that could have caused them a problem.

By now, it was far past twilight, and the moon, haning high in the sky, was beginning to disappear behind the horizon. They decided to go to sleep for the night.

One week later, they had been in the cabin for the entire day because of the wind and the cold temperatures. Terrifying grey clouds were beginning to block out the sun.

"It's going to storm tonight." Kiba observed as the humidity in the air began to thicken. He picked up what sounded like a small squeak from Hinata, but it was so quiet even to his ears that he dismissed it as him hearing things.

They had all been gathered in the main room, the wolves telling of some of their travels apart and together. Hinata had been listening avidly to a story Hige was telling, until the white wolf had commented on the weather.

The girl lost her interest immediately "I'm going to go ahead to bed. I'll see you four in the morning." The Hyuuga heiress mumbled, suddenly very eager to get to sleep.

The wolves watched her go, before deciding to turn in themselves. Each muttered a short goodnight, then went to their respective beds.

The thunder began only a few short hours after they broke up to sleep.

Suddenly, a particularly loud clap of thunder shook the cabin, jolting Hinata awake with what she thought to be a ear splitting shriek. In reality, it was only a small squeak in the dead silence following the thunder. She sat whimpering for a few moments, before she heard a scratching sound across the floor outside the door.

When the handle turned and the door creaked slowly open, she had to hold her breath, the nightmare coming true.

The Hyuuga girl was infinitely glad, however, when Kiba walked through the open portal, letting his questioning eyes linger on her quaking form before traveling about the room to find what had frightened her.

His eyes cast about the room twice before returning to the shivering girl who cowered beneath the covers. He asked the only logical question. "What happened to terrify you so?"

The girl looked up at him, glad for the darkness. Her face had taken on a bright crimson hue as she stuttered about for an answer. "I-I-I anou, I-I-I. I-I mean to s-say, a-anou,"

The boy's eyes softened ever-so slightly. "Relax. Nothing will hurt you here."

He watched as her shoulders slumped slightly and her red face dimmed a small bit. A lone tear trekked its way down her pale cheek. "My mother died in a storm like this a long time ago." She spoke quietly, afraid of his laughter. When he made no noise, she continued, still wary. "We were at the Hyuuga Compound and my sister and I were playing outside in the rain. My mother told us we needed to come inside or we might get sick. When we kept playing, she walked into the rain with us to drag us back inside. The storm was nearly right on top of our house, and she was struck by the lightening. She died on the spot, and I've never been able to sit through a storm without that memory since. I've always felt that it was my fault."

Kiba felt her pain in the small space seperating them. "There was no way you could have known that would happen. You were young, there was nothing you could have done. Your sister still would have been out there even if you, yourself, had gone into the house like your mother told you."

"My father always blamed me for her death. He cannot bear to look at me, since I look so much like my mother. He scolded me many times without even glancing my way, but he praised my sister. He said that if I hadn't been out there, Hanabi-chan wouldn't have. He says that she was following her big sister, idolizing her, wanting to be like her. She was doing her duty as a little sister, but I was not. She could have been killed too. I wasn't looking out for her. I failed my first mission that night, with many casualties. From that moment on, I lost all respect from my clan."

Kiba noticed that her tears had pooled further in her opalesque eyes. The white wolf approached her, sensing her need for solace. He leapt beside her and curled up. She bent into his now-soft white fur.

By the time she had exhausted herself, the wolf's fur was soaked, but she was comforted. Deciding the story needed to be finished, since he already knew far more than her other friends, the Hyuuga girl continued. "When I lost my mother, my father couldn't bare to look at me, as I said before. No other from my clan was willing to train me, so by the time I was academy aged, the others were so far ahead of me that I had no hope of catching up. I worked as hard as I could, but I was far weaker than all the other kids. I was looked down upon by them also. I grew up to the words 'you're weak', 'you're hopeless', and 'you're only a liability'. Eventually, I came to believe them.

"But a few years ago, I was put on a team of three, with my sensei as a fourth member. They helped build my confidence back up, but friends can only help so far. My skills and confidence are better, but I'm still only a burden on others, and my family sees it the same way. Neji-nii-san and I have a better relationship than we have had for years, but as I said, no one else in my family cares."

The white wolf sat with a thoughtful expression for a few moments, piecing together the information with every occurence since they had met. "You are far from a burden, Hinata. If you were not you, how would Tsume, Toboe, and I still be living. The three of us would have died alone, save for Tsume, who was with Hige. But Hige could have done nothing to help any of us. It is because of you that we are healing; I would not call that a burden."

The tearstained face looked at him with eyes shinning from happiness. "Thank you." She murmured softly before dropping in exhaustion. The wolf caught her deciding to stay still and let her sleep. He himself was drained from the emotions he had experianced for the first time that night. He lay there thinking for a few moments, before following the girl's example and falling into a deep sleep.

The next morning dawned with grey skies. The storm had ended, but it seemed like a gloomy day was to follow. Hinata awoke disoriented. She woke to a pure white, warm furry body. As the events of the night returned to her, she jerked away, startling the wolf awake. Jumping away also, he glanced around the cabin, confused. _When did I get in her? I thought I went to sleep on the couch last night._

He spotted Hinata and the last night's happenings came back to him. He nodded to her in greeting before leaving the room to lay on the couch. Neither of them wanted to be questioned by the others about what had happened, so Hinata allowed him to leave without comment.

She crawled back into bed, thinking of how he had changed since they had first met. She had managed to befriend the wolf, and since then, he had been a quiet, loyal companion at her side. He had been opening up to her, slowly but surely, in the close-to-two weeks they had known each other. The other wolves were more reluctant, but something was different about the white one. It was as if something she had said had triggered an immediate trust in him, allowing for a deeper understanding of this being that had seemingly come from no where.

Growls in the other room brought her attention back to the present. She stood, walking into the main room. The three wolves already there were facing the door, growling at it. Toboe walked into the room, sniffed, and also began growling. "What is it?" Hinata asked.

Hige, the darker of the brown wolves, nodded persistantly to the door and barked, as a real dog would. He was playing his part.

Hinata nodded and walked to the door just as a knock resounded through the room. She opened the door a small bit, allowing some view outside. She looked around for a moment, before finding their guest.

He was standing off to the side, clutching a gun in one hand and a black leash in the other. He bowed slightly and removed his hat in respect. Attached to the leash was a small blue dog with piercing blue eyes, but it was slightly larger than a normal one. Hinata suspected that it was at least part wolf.

"Y-Yes? H-How may I-I help y-you this m-morning, s-sir?" The Hyuuga girl asked, wary of the gun and unfamiliar man.

"Hello young lady. You haven't happened to have seen a few wolves wandering around this village, have you?" He asked politely. The older man was reluctant to admit that he had gotten lost looking for the beasts. His grey hair wason either side of his head, but seemed to avoid the top of his head. He replaced his hat and stoode straight once again. The man wore a brown trench coat and black boots. He had dark, squinted eyes that seemed to shoot daggers at her even though his tone had been of the utmost politeness.

"Why n-no, I-I don't b-believe I h-have. Is there a-anything else y-you need, s-sir?" Hinata asked, her proficiency at lying coming into play. He did not seem convinced.

"I'm positive they came this way. Are you sure you haven't seen them?" He looked at her suspiciously. "In that case, my name is Quent, police chief of Kyrios. Would you mind if I came in for a little while? I have had no where to stay for the whole of my long treck looking for the wolves."

The girl glanced behind her for a moment as she opened her door to the man. "Why s-sure, I-I don't m-mind. W-Would you l-like some t-tea?" She asked. The man nodded as she led him to one of the couches. She then walked to the small kitchenette, putting a kettle on the stove and bringing out the necessary ingrediants for tea.

"S-So what b-brings you a-all this w-way, j-just to s-search for w-wolves? I h-have never h-heard of them c-committing such a-a h-horrible c-crime as to d-deserve the i-involvment of the p-police."

"They killed my whole family. I was coming home fom work, and there they were, standing in front of my house, watching it burn."

I-I'm sure it w-was all a m-misunderstanding. I-I've never s-seen a w-wolf before, b-but from w-what I've h-heard, they a-are very d-docile creatures."

"You're protecting them! I knew it! You're house smells of the beasts, and now you're saying good things about them? I knew it!" He shouted at her, but began to regret this when her eyes filled with tears.

"I-I h-have n-no idea –w-what you're talking a-about." She wept."My dog died last night, during the storm. I-I-I figured that s-since w-wolves are cl-closely related to d-dogs, that m-maybe their p-personalities were s-similar." She broke down and wept, falling heavily to her knees.

Quent's expression was one of such shock that any lesser trained ninja would have broken out into laughter in the situation, but Hinata was better trained than that and continued sobbing. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know." He said.

The kettle began to steam, and the Hyuuga heiress turned her back to him, shoulders shaking in the fake sadness, and took it off the stove. She poured it into two cups, turned around to him, and handed the hunter-policeman his cup.

The man finished his tea quickl. He handed over his cup to the girl and began to speak. "I think it's time I take my leave. You have been of very much help, young lady. I'm sorry to have accused you of housing the horrid beasts I've been searching for. I'll be on my way now. Have a nice day." He turned his back on the house, leaving it behind, without a doubt in his heart that she was lying to him.

The girl within, however, was laughing (quietly, mind you, in case he came back) as she stood at the sink washing the cups. "You four can come in now."

She turned as she heard the four wolves jump through the window into the room once more. "That was a good show you put on. How did you come up with such a story with so little time? He could have killed you." Toboe asked incredulously.

Hinata laughed in answer. "It's my line of work. Depending on the mission, that's what I do. It's not that often, but sometimes on my higher ranked missions, I have to do that. Either that or die. That's how."

The wolves gained a new respect for the life of the girl before them, but they had a feeling of foreboding that Quent would be back, even angrier than before.

**(A/N: There you have it: chapter 5 is out. This might end up longer than I intended, who knows. I had a sudden inspiration of a new twist with Quent. So it may be longer, may not be, even I don't know. Anyway, I tried to make it extra long because of your long wait. Review if you want, if not, then don't. Flame if you like, but please have a ligitiment reason. Not because of the pairing or something like that. I'll try to fix what you don't like if its ligitiment. I like typing, and I like to share my stories. Flames don't hurt, I welcome criticism. [A recent realization, flames don't hurt. Maybe I'm a water element ninja XD] Hope you enjoyed the chapeter! ^-^ )**


	6. Misunderstanding

**(A/N: Am I adding Hige in enough? To me, it seems like I keep forgetting him… I dunno. I also realize that I'm switching the focus from Hinata to Kiba often. Is that confusing anyone? I was going back and reading some of the past chapters. I know that the first two focused on one character specifically, telling things from their side. But as I read on, I realized that in all the chapters after that, I switch from one side to the other many times without warning. I really hope I'm not confusing anyone. If so, I can fix it, but if not, I won't worry about it. Tell me in your review if I am, or I won't know….**

**Takai (): I wasn't sure whether I was moving too fast or not. I'm glad you think not. ^_^**

**Chapter 6**

Several short days later, Hinata received a summons to the Hyuuga Compound. Neji had come by to deliver it. "Don't worry, they just want to check up on you, to see for themselves that you're doing well out here. They apparently don't trust me still." He had told her.

She had forgiven him long ago for almost killing her in the Chunnin exams. She forgave, but her family did not. The public eye was on the Hyuuga family for a long while, for allowing the boy to get so out of hand that he tried to kill the leader's daughter.

Her father did care that she hadn't died, but he didn't show it. The rest of the clan thought he only cared because Neji had almost killed his heiress and that the heiress was weaker than him, which would look bad publicly, but Hiashi spoke to her in private afterwards. He told her he was proud of her perseverence. It would have been a perfect moment if he hadn't thought her to be sleeping. She couldn't respond, for he believed her to still be unconscious.

The Hyuuga heiress pondered this as she walked to the Compound, four 'dogs' on her heels.

She arrived home to a silent guard tower. _It must be a council meeting._ She sighed. The young heiress hated meetings like this. She sat through the meeting, quiet as a mouse, just listening. Hinata was unallowed to give her opinion on things, since she was only the heiress, not the leader.

It was so different. Around town, she had the pull of her clan, such power, with the other ninjas. In her own home, though, things were completely opposite. She was the one looked down upon, the insignifigant one. No power what-so-ever.

She entered the council chamber, silent as usual. She stood in the doorway for a few moments, allowing Kiba to study the room, as she knew he would. It was a large room, housing, at the moment, the entire council of elders, her father, and Neji, who was now a part of the meetings because of his stunning preformances in the Chunnin exams (and to be sure they knew where he was). They all knelt at a long, low table, with Hiashi at the end, with the head elder to his right, and the empty chair where his wife used to sit to his left. From there, the elders sat further away, depending on their rank in the council. Hinata's seat was at the other end, facing her father. To her right sat Hanabi, to her left, Neji, though the former was not present in this meeting.

There were no windows in this room, so as to allow no spies from outside the clan easy access. There were also special chakra shields put up to keep others from hearing inside. This did nothing to keep out the Byakugan stares and lip readings, but there was no reason for secret meetings in a family of ninjas: they would all know sooner or later anyway.

Other than this, there was nothing other than the entrance way, a sliding paper door.

The elders of the council stared at the four animals she brought with her with suspiscion and incredulous expressions. Before they could comment, however, she spoke, startling them all the more. "These d-dogs a-are m-my charges u-until they h-heal. Tsunade-sama g-g-gave me this a-as a-a mission. Therefore, I-I-I c-cannot l-leave them a-alone." After an inner grimace at how weak her statements sounded, she led the way to her usual seat, where the wolves gathered behind her.

The head elder still looked shocked, but regained his movement and nodded. "So. Shall we begin?" He asked Hiashi. The man nodded, and the elder began to speak once more. "This is an important meeting. It concerns the safety of our heiress."

All eyes turned to look at the young girl, who blushed a deep crimson under the attention of so many of those whom she was used to receiving glares from, not worried glances.

"It has come to our attention that there is an attack brewing against Konoha. Kabuto is hoping to gain the Byakugan, and he is prepared to launch a full scale attack to get it. We are worried that there might be another attempt at your life, Hinata-sama. Is there some way you can convince Tsunade-sama to let you move back into the village with those mutts? You need to be more protected than with four wild dogs. We don't even know whether they're loyal enough to defend you yet."

"G-Gomen, demo, I-I-I d-d-don't think she'll l-l-let m-me stay w-with four d-d-dogs. She d-didn't e-e-even w-want m-m-me staying w-with two. They f-f-frighten the v-v-villagers." The Hyuuga heiress had listened to these meetings long enough to know that the head elder did not like to be talked back to by children, else he would lose his quickly and yell even quicker.

"Insolent girl! Tell Tsunade that we're keeping you and your mutts in the compound on house arrest." The man yelled, causing the room to wince from the volume.

Hinata bowed her head in agreement. "I-I-I w-will go t-t-tell Hokage-sama r-r-right away, s-s-s-sir." She stood from the table they had been kneeling at and turned to leave the room.

The moment her hand touched the door, the elder nearest to where she sat spoke in a quiet whisper. "You were not dismissed, girl. Come sit back down and listen to the rest of the meeting."

It seemed that Hinata was more accepted than she had thought. Usually the woman would talk louder, to get her in trouble. Today it was as if she had no desire for mischief. The Hyuuga heiress turned back around as though it were her own choice and returned to her seat. The head elder nodded approvingly.

The rest of the meeting was merely politics, uninteresting things that Hinata decided to ignore for the time being. As soon as her father dismissed the meeting, she approached the woman who had spoken to her earlier. "Arigatou gozaimisu."

Her reply was a mere nod and simple sentence: "You did not learn by harsh words, so I decided to try a different tactic." Hinata bowed slightly to the woman before taking her leave with her charges on their leashes.

As they walked to the Hokage Tower, Hinata began speaking to them. "So it looks like we're stuck on house arrest. Father won't let you wander around the house, so you'll be stuck in my room all day. I'll try to find some blankets to lay on the floor to make your more comfortable. Just remember that you have to stay wolves all the time now, because the compound is full of Byakugan users, such as myself."

Toboe was about to ask her what this 'Byakugan' was, but he remembered that there was nothing he could say if he wanted their existance to be kept a secret.

Once again, the villagers gave the Hyuuga girl a wide berth on the streets of Konoha. She entered the Hokage Tower and resignedly climbed the stairs to arrange an immediate meeting with Tsunade.

Opening the door upon being allowed entrance, Tsunade glanced up, then looked once more. "I thought I told you to keep those beasts out of Konoha, that they were scaring the villagers?"

"W-Well, I-I was, but then m-my father s-summoned me f-for a meeting. I-I was ordered t-to c-come back h-home. I-I told them you y-you said t-to k-keep the d-dogs out o-of public eye, and the head e-elder t-told me I w-was to be p-put on house a-arrest, along w-with them. H-He g-gave me no choices, s-simply t-told me to t-tell you." The Hyuuga girl bowed her head. She knew that she had no control over the elders, but Tsunade was sure to be mad at their assuming that the Hokage would be okay with it.

Tsunade sighed. "Just keep the dogs out of sight." Hinata nodded, so the blonde dismissed her.

The five traveled back to the compound in silence. As they approached, the girl spoke once more. "You can speak to me when we are in my room, you just have to stay as wolves. The Byakugan can see through solid matter, but it is an eye trait, it cannot hear. Nor can it read the lips of animals, for no animals they know of can speak."

Hige and the others nodded. Hinata was well aware that the injured three were beginning to show signs that their injuries were still prevalent, but she did not acknowledge this fact, for the sake of their pride as wolves.

They arrived, and the heiress went to work gathering her healing supplies. She cleaned and rewrapped the wounds of the injured, then went to her dresser table and picked up a grooming brush. She hesitantly looked at the four animals sprawled out on her floor. "Do you mind if I brush out your fur? It looks like it could be so soft if it didn't have all those knots."

Hige and Toboe hesitantly shook their heads. They did not mind, but they were unsure of how their leader and Tsume would act.

After observing the two, Kiba also shook his head. He couldn't care less what Tsume thought of him for this. They had been through enough that Kiba knew he would always have Tsume's respect. Said wolf, however, declined the girl's offer.

Hinata set to work, brushing out each one's fur, save for Tsume's. They found that it felt good to be petted by a human, even if she wasn't the same as Cheza, the flower maiden. When she finished, their fur was velvety to the touch, so she simply sat stroking them for the duration of the conversation.

Hige began to see why Kiba had first trusted the human girl of the Hyuuga clan. She was unlike any other human he had ever met before. The girl was genuinely concerned for their wellbeing, she was able to help them, and she did.

Over the following few days, Kiba's pack members began to gain a much deeper understanding and trust of the human girl who decided she was going to heal them.

The week following the moment when her family stated that Hinata was on house arrest, she noted with mixed emotions that the wolves were almost fully healed. Soon, they would no longer need her. There would be nothing tying them down to her or her village, nothing to compel them to stay any longer than needed. This gave her mixed feelings. She was glad that they were healing well, but after they left, she would most likely never see them again.

It wasn't like they knew where they were. They could probably never get back if they tried. But there was nothing holding them to this place, so the Hyuuga girl knew they would leave as soon as they possibly could.

She was jolted harshly out of her thoughts by a feminine shriek from somewhere within the compound. The girl quickly glanced around to find that the smallest wolf, Toboe, had left the room through the door that she had left cracked slightly when she had gone out to get breakfast for the five of them.

With a quiet order for the rest of the wolves to stay within the confines of her room, the Hyuuga heiress quickly left the room to return the poor, probably lost, young wolf-boy to the rest of his pack.

As she left her room, she muttered "Byakugan," and began to scan the compound. She found the pup's location: near her sister's room. The person Toboe had met was Hanabi, and the young girl seemed frightened out of her mind that there was a foreign animal so near her room. Hinata knew the younger girl had seen what Akamaru could do and was in no hurry to see what this beast was capable of.

Before the poor pup was hurt, the Hyuuga heiress rushed onto the scene. She had only needed to travel down a few short, empty wooden hallways lit by the evening sun.

The sisters were close, but they were more than friends and sisters. Hinata always looked out for the well being of her young sister. She acted the part of their mother, since she had always believed it was her own self that took the older woman away.

She reached her sister in a rush of long, flying hair and pandemonium. The young Hyuuga had chocolatey hair that was soft as the fur she had brushed days ago. It was styled much like her cousin, Neji's, and accentuated her pale white skin. She was slender, with a skinny waist and small shoulders. Her white eyes were similar to Hinata's, yet lacking the same warmth.

Hinata stood before her, back to the wolf, and hugged the younger girl, who latched onto her older sister. After all, even ten year olds need the loving touch of a mother figure when they are afraid. The younger child was clearly shaken at meeting such a large dog, almost as large as Akamaru, wandering around the Hyuuga hallways. "D-Do not w-worry, Hanabi-chan. This p-pup will not h-harm you. Y-You are safe."

"What is that **thing** doing here?" Hanabi questioned in a shaky whisper. She was beginning to calm down, but the animal still being there was evidently alarming to the girl.

"I-I am taking c-care of him. H-He is my charge for a-a mission. D-Don't worry, he w-won't hurt you. He knows b-better." She glanced at the wolf with a disapproving expression.

It was only an act to put on before her sister, though. She knew she had not told Toboe to stay in the room, she had only assumed they knew. Toboe, being a naturally curious being, had wandered only because he did not know better.

Toboe, however, had no idea that this was an act. His ears drooped and his head lowered in true guilt. He started to pad back to Hinata's room, and the rest of his pack, as she continued to comfort her younger sister.

A few seemingly long moments later, the Hyuuga heiress made her way back to her room. Upon opening the door, she found three angry wolf glares directed at her. Toboe had curled up into a small ball on some of the sheets Hinata had spread out for them. The other three were side by side in front of him, glaring daggers at the confused girl. "What is it?" She questioned quietly, almost as if afraid of the answer.

Kiba growled. He observed her intimidated posture, and thought that she looked much like she had when they first met in the forest, those short three weeks ago. "I thought you were different. We all did. I see now that our trust has been misplaced. You were only helping to complete a 'mission', weren't you?" His eyes seemed to look straight into her soul, so there was no possible way that the Hyuuga girl could lie to him, she knew.

"No, I-I told you, I-I wanted to h-help you. I-I d-don't know what y-you're talking a-about!" Tears sprang into her eyes as she watched the trust and friendship she had built with these boys shatter into millions of tiny pieces before her. She refused to let the tears leave her eyes, however.

When no more words were spoken, she walked to her dresser, grabbed a change of clothes, and walked into the bathroom to take a long shower.

She stepped into the steaming water with a sigh. As the cascade of water slipped down her skin, she winced at the heat, finally letting the tears plunge into the tub below her. The Hyuuga girl had thought there may be a possibility of them staying a short while even after their injuries had healed. At this, more tears fell; there was no longer any chance of that.

Finally, the tears ceased to fall. She stepped out of the shower feeling physically refreshed, but hopeless about reconciling with the wolves.

Hinata dressed and walked through her room into the kitchen to get dinner for the four creatures she was caring for.

Bringing it back, she lay it on the floor where the wolves could reach, and climbed into bed to sleep. She knew there was no hope of her eating while she felt so guilty. She didn't even realize what she had done.

So she listened to the sound of the four eating and slowly let it lull her to sleep.

Kiba watched her as she lay down, feeling as though a thorn had been stuck in his heart. When she had given the food to them, she had lain it on the floor as far away from them as ettiquette would allow her.

And her eyes. He had never seen them that blank. They always had a spark of life, or happiness, or sadness, or something in them. But as she stood up, the light reflected off of her absolutely blank, pearly orbs.

He turned to look at Toboe. The poor boy was still in a state of panic that he had somehow upset the girl whom had taken such good care of them since they had arrived.

Looking at the rest of his pack, he noted that they all seemed to be drowsy. They had all worried at how Hinata had rushed out of the room to find Toboe. He and his pack had thought it was out of worry, but apparently they were wrong. It was all about apperence.

It was how she was raised, after all. Her father taught her that. So how could she possibly think in any other way?

The white wolf watched as the other three wolves drifted away, into their own dreams.

Kiba decided that it would be best to leave the problem until morning instead of waking them, walking to the window and lying in the moonlit area on the floor. He looked to the pearl of the sky, immediately thinking of the girl currently curled in bed, asleep.

As he lay, thinking over the events of the past day, he was startled from his thoughts when he heard an almost imperceptible whimper.

Pricking his ears to listen more closely, he heard nothing for a while, so he dismissed it. He slept much later into the night after thinking over the dilemma between the human girl and his pack.

In the morning, he awoke to the sound of a door opening and shutting. Raising his ears to hear the sound better, he raised his head when he noticed that the footsteps were not Hinata's, yet sounded familiar all the same. His head tilted to the side when he saw a boy of around sixteen walk toward him. A quiet growl arose in his throat. The boy froze, looking for the sorce of the noise.

His eyes came to rest upon Kiba, and immediately the growling ended. The boy had pearly eyes the same as Hinata. This must be the boy that visited the cabin twice. What was he doing in the Hyuuga heiress' room?

The boy was carrying a tray. On it were four plates of raw meat, something Kiba hadn't eaten since he'd met Hinata. He strained his ears for some sound of her presence, but found none. He looked to the boy with questioning eyes. Apparently, the boy – Neji, the white wolf remembered – felt the stare, for he spoke. "Here's your breakfast. Hinata-sama asked me to bring something to you this morning. She didn't say where she was going."

As soon as he spoke, he looked around, as if ashamed to be seen talking to 'lesser beings' who 'couldn't understand' him anyway. He lay the plates on the floor and ghosted from the room on soundless soles.

Kiba wondered where the girl could have gone. He had never imagined that she would just leave without telling him where she was going. She'd never done it before. He looked to her bed, messily made, with a dark spot on her pillow. Upon closer examination, it was wet with salty drops, Hinata's tears.

He waited for the others to awaken, then ate while telling the others of the morning's events and questions. Neither Toboe nor Tsume had an answer, though Hige offered them all something to think about when he spoke. "Did you not think, last night, that maybe, somewhere, there was a misunderstanding? Did you see how stunned she was when she saw us protecting Toboe like that? When you spoke to her, did you not see the tears in her eyes, nor the blank, emptiness when she brought us dinner?" He paused to look around the group with knowing eyes.

"The fact that she brought nothing for herself should have told you something. She has never skipped a meal since we've been here, nor has she turned in that early since the night of the thunderstorm." He gazed meaningfully at the bed, with the tell-tale signs of tears still lingering.

"Think of how she must have felt. We've spent more than three weeks with her, and never have we done something like that. She probably felt hurt, betrayed, confused. She probably has no idea what she's done, and is afraid to ask, for fear of offending us. So she woke early this morning, told her cousin to bring us food, and left, to give us our space." He ended his sentence and bent back to his food.

This left the white wolf in a state of stunned unease. He hadn't thought about her side of the story. He hadn't bothered to ask her what she had meant by the look she gave the younger wolf the night before. He had just automatically jumped to a conclusion because of his previous distrust of all humans.

When Hinata still hadn't come home by sundown, the wolves were starting to worry that she was not planning on returning home that day. Neji had come in with more food for their lunch, but he refused to stay and talk; he refused to say a word without Hinata there, because they were still 'inferior beings'.

The rice paper door slid open quietly, and a familiar set of footsteps reached their ears. She walked into the room, not glancing once at the wolves. Kiba studied her form in the few moments she was in the room.

Her outfit was covered in dust. Bloody bandages were wrapped around her knuckles, and her hair was messy. In his opinion, she looked as though she had been in a fight.

Eyes still downcast, she winced as she wrapped her fingers around the handle of her drawer, before pulling out a clean change of clothes and disappearing into the bathroom, casting a single glance in their direction. Catching his eyes, she diverted her own and shut the door.

She had completely ignored their presence, save for the single glance. He fervently wished that she had questioned him on his behavior the night before, or that he had a chance to speak to her.

He resigned himself to wait. She left the bathroom a long while after she went in, still looking worse for wear, but much cleaner. Kiba called out to her as soon as her foot touched the threshold of her room. "Hinata."

The girl froze, her eyes turning to meet his. "Hai?" She whispered. Another scene like the night before and she didn't know if she could hold herself together.

To her surprise, he lowered his head in a wolf's bow. "I appologize for our actions last night. They were hastily decided, and we did not bother to get your side of what happened. So let's hear your side now. Why did you look at Toboe so disapprovingly?"

Hinata explained how she had to, for the sake of her sister's calm, give the wolf-boy the disapproving look. There would have been no other way to keep her sister calm, but to scold the wolf for scaring her.

Kiba nodded. He should have known it was something like that. After spending three weeks constantly with this young woman, he should have known better by now. He walked toward her, then bent to licked her hand for forgiveness, but as soon as his tongue touched her hand, she jerked it away.

At the same moment, Kiba flinched away from her. There was a metallic taste to it that had never been there before. He carefully sniffed her hand, noting to his great surprise that it had the metallic scent attributed to blood. "What happened?" He questioned, more loudly than he would have liked.

The girl's eyes widened slightly as she opened her mouth to answer. She paused, however, when there was a knock on the door. Hinata knelt by the white wolf's side and placed her hand on his head, as though she had been petting him all along. She turned to look at the door, speaking only loud enough for the other person to hear. "C-Come in."

Her cousin stepped in the door, looking quickly about the room with his Byakugan. "Who was in here? I heard a male voice as I was walking by. Who was it, Hinata-sama?"

"N-No one, Neji-nii-san. It's just m-me and these four. They w-would have barked or g-growled if anyone o-other than myself was in h-here."

The boy cast another lasting glance around the room before nodded reluctantly. He bowed slightly. "I beg your forgiveness, then, Hinata-sama. I apologize for accusing you falsely." He looked back up at her face, noticing that there was no sense of relief on her face. He finally seemed to accept her answer, his face clearing of its suspicious expression.

The Hyuuga heiress nodded her head and watched as he walked from the room. When she was positive that he was out of hearing distance, she sighed. "That was close."

Kiba nodded, but was not deterred. He knew she was trying to change the subject and avoid his question, but he refused to let her this time. He repeated his question, albeit more quietly this time.

She smiled at him. "Don't worry about it. It isn't important. Nothing happened."

The white wolf looked far from convinced, but before he could repeat his question with a demand for an answer, Tsume spoke. "Obviously it something did happen. I smell blood. Therefore, one of us has a fresh injury. It is not us wolves, for we've been here all day. Spill it, Hyuuga."

Hinata's face fell as she sighed once more. There was no further way to avoid this. "I went training with the rest of my team. I was out there with them for a few hours earlier today. I haven't trained with my team in over three weeks, so I was a little rusty in my one-on-one fighting. I lost my match against Shino-kun, my other teammate, so I told them to go home without me. I kept training long after they had gone." She looked away, a scarlet blush blossoming down her face.

"By the time I tired so much that I could barely get home, I realized I had trained my hands bloody. I stayed a while longer, ate the dinner I packed, wrapped my hands, and just rested. When I realized the time, I rushed home, and you know the story from there."

Toboe, who had observed the exchange quietly, approached Hinata ashamedly. "I'm sorry I left your room, and that I misunderstood what happened." He looked sincerely worried that he had upset her, and, in truth, had never meant to make the others mad at the young girl.

"It's fine, Toboe. I did not tell you you had to stay within these four walls. It never occurred to me that my younger sister would be frightened of you. It was my fault."

"It was all just a misunderstanding, as Hige assumed earlier." Tsume added. "Now let's just forget it. Your cousin didn't bring us anything to eat for dinner."

As he spoke, his stomach rumbled. He looked away from the smile on Hinata's face, scowling.

She fetched them food, happy that the misinterpretation had been fixed. As she had already eaten, she simply watched them eat. They enjoyed fellowship with one another until far past sundown. They retired for the night, for Hinata had a long day of training behind her and had fallen asleep while listening to them converse.

Each slept soundly for the full spanse of the night, unbeknownst to them that they were in the calm before the storm.

**(A/N: How did the chapter turn out? It's ten [well, nine and a half] pages long in microsoft word. Would you rather me keep the chapters long, with the same amount of waiting as it has been, or make them shorter, with a shorter wait? I can do either [Snake's Legacy had some pretty short chapters]. It's just a matter of your preference. =^-^= Hope you enjoyed chapter six.)**


	7. A Danger Foretold

**(A/N: Hey, I'm trying to make the updates faster, maybe every two weeks now? I dunno. But looking back on the other chapters, I've made you all wait for a month in between almost all the chapters. I feel really bad about that because I know I've left a few cliffhangers. Especially last chapter. This one has a bit of action, and somewhat of a cliffhanger. I'm still not exactly sure how this will end, but the details are falling together very nicely, so I'm hoping I can make quicker updates. Though I must admit, I've definitely got a few plot twists in mind. ^^**

**Sorry, I haven't updated before now. Christmas time is always super busy for me. I haven't been home for the weekend in a month now, so I'm excited that I'm actually going to be able to update this weekend since I'm home. XD This is the first time I've been able to type on this story in such a long time. :( But I'm gonna make it a bit more interesting [hopefully] than the usual chapters. This one will come with a twist that changes the original end to the story. [A stroke of thought to end with fewer loose ends and hopefully keep more in character.]**

**By the way. I've realized something that I forgot that is super important. I don't think I've put it in a single one of these chapters…. I do not own Naruto, nor do I own Wolf's Rain.)**

Chapter 7

Tsume awoke to the sound of a gentle humming the next morning. Almost falling back asleep while listening to it, he jerked awake at the crack in the soft hum. The tune, he realized, was a melancholy one. The grey wolf opened one golden eye and cast a look about the bedroom.

The Hyuuga girl was standing, looking at a picture that was hanging on the wall. It seemed to be her, though much younger, an older woman almost identical to her. It was the girl who had been humming the saddening tune.

Tsume stood, padding over to her on silent paws. "Is that your mother?" He asked quietly.

She nodded. "She taught me that song. I was too young to remember the lyrics, but she used to sing that to me when I was sad. Now I just hum to myself." Her eyes never strayed from the picture before her as she spoke.

Tsume, surprised that she had answered so completely, stayed silent, observing the picture and the sparkle of sadness in her eyes. "You miss her." Just a simple statement.

"Hai." A simple answer. An obvious one. She was glad that the wolf had come to stand by her. It was a silent support that she was ever thankful of.

As the other slowly woke, they left the picture, opting instead to sit on the floor near where the others were still laying.

Hinata had been thinking during her alone morning moments, and had come to the conclusion that they all needed fresh air. When she went to get their breakfasts, she would talk to her father and hopefully get permission to go out into the forest with them.

Her father agreed, much to her surprise, but he said it was simply because there had been no sightings of Kabuto.

She returned to her room with a smile on her face. She told the wolves over breakfast, and each was as happy to be out of the stuffy compound as the rest of them.

She took them through a secret passageway used for when one of the Hyuuga clan wanted to leave the gates without being seen. It had been used only once before, when the Akatsuki attacked. The Hyuugas needed to send a team of reinforcements to a few people in the outer fights without going through the middle of the fray. Not a single person outside the Hyuuga family, other than the Hokage, knew about this passageway, but Hinata figured she could trust the wolves with the secret.

Upon reaching the outer limits of the village, the proceeded to meander through the trees, simply relaxing in the feel of being outdoors once more. More than once, the Hyuuga girl stopped to admire the new growth in the forest. The winter's frost had killed off many plants earlier in the year, but the forest was quickly beginning to revive itself.

After a while of reveling in the outdoors, they found a clearing to lay out their luncheon in. The mid-spring trees were a bright green, blocking out much of the sun's bright rays. They, all as humans, were relaxing in the shade of one of the many trees surrounding the clearing when Tsume looked up meaningfully. "Did you hear that?"

The snap of a stick under a boot alerted the rest of them to a presence other than themselves in the vicinity of the clearing. Hinata bent somewhat closer to the ground, and reached into her pouch, retrieving a kunai. Immediately, she activated her Byakugan, scanning the area. Veins around her eyes bulged slightly as a sign of her kekkei genkai being used. "There's someone standing in the shadow of the tree directly in front of us." She whispered, knowing they could hear. "It is an older man, and he's standing in an odd position." She trailed off, realizing who the person was. "It's Quent!" She exclaimed in a whispered voice. "He is holding his gun as though he's ready to shoot it."

The wolf-boys looked worriedly in the direction they assumed she was looking. Finally, the man stepped from the shadows, knowing they already knew he was there. He demanded answers immediately. "You!" He spoke, looking to Hinata. "What are you doing here with those wolves?" He glared ferociously at her, shooting swift glances at the aforementioned boys.

"W-Wolves? What a-are you t-talking about. These b-boys look p-perfectly human t-to me." She said, hoping that he would believe her.

"These are wolves girly, and mind you, you better get away from them." He ordered. There was no way he would get this close to getting rid of the wolves and give up, simply because a girl refused to move away from them.

"H-How can y-you be sure? They l-look exactly l-like normal people to m-me. If y-you plan o-on attacking them, y-you'll have t-to deal with m-me first. They are c-civilians, s-so they h-have no m-means of defense. L-Leave them a-alone!" Her ferocious look made the man pause for a moment of indecision. He seemed to make up his mind, raising his gun to point straight at Toboe.

In the split second that was given to her, Hinata moved to stand in between him and the gun. As the older man pulled the trigger, she flicked her kunai and leapt backward. This effectively pushed herself and Toboe out of harms way in case she should miss.

True to her training, however, her weapon hit its target dead on, lodging in the barrel of his gun a mere second before he fired it.

Instead of sending a bullet their way, the barrel exploded. This was foreseen by the man, from the moment she had launched the kunai. After he pulled the trigger, he tossed the gun in the air, where it blew up. He flinched at the heat that pervaded the area.

When he realized the full extent to which the situation had traveled, Quent's eyes widened in panic, and he began backing away.

He bumped into something soft, however. Whipping around, he found Hinata glaring into his eyes. "I know that they're wolves. I also know that there's no possible way that I'll let you kill them. I have been caring for them for the past three weeks now, and they have not ONCE tried to harm me. They are loyal, caring, complex beings. If you are so prejudiced against them, then forget they exist, and go live your life." Her Byakugan was still activated, giving her a look so ferocious that it made the older man want to crawl away ashamedly, a considerable feat in itself.

"Last week, you told me you had no idea where the wolves went. You lied. Very convincingly might I add." He narrowed his eyes in return, putting up a brave front.

"It's what I do. I'm a ninja. If you value your life, I advise you to leave this place, and tell no one what you saw here. Otherwise, I will hunt you down personally, and assassinate you in your sleep." Her glare grew more intense, leading him to believe she was sincere in her promise, whether she was telling the truth or not. It sent chills down his spine to see this girl so different from the one he had met at the cabin. This gave him a new thought, a new question to ask of her.

"Are you really the person I met in the cabin a last week?" He was further stunned when she shook her head.

"Iie, I am not. Now, I am Hyuuga Hinata, ninja of Konoha. Then, I was a little girl playing a part to save the lives of my friends. There is a difference between that girl and me." She ended her speech, watching as his expression clouded, confused and reluctant to question. There was no way he could possibly fight this person.

Warily, he continued the conversation, wanting to prolong his imminent death as long as he could. "What is that difference?" His eyes strayed from her face to the four wolf-boys on either side of her, all five people vicious as the day he had seen wolves kill his family.

"She does not exist." She stated simply. She bent once more to remove a kunai from her weapons pouch. She raised it to his neck. He shut his eyes, unwilling to see the expression on her face as she slid the cool metal through the warm, vulnerable skin at his neck.

He felt the cool touch of the metal, afraid to move in case he should cut his own neck. He would have fallen over in surprise had the ninja not stayed in front of him. The metal had been removed from his skin. Was she giving him a chance to live? "What are you doing?"

"I have no need to cause unnecessary bloodshed. You are free to leave, so long as I never see you near here, nor these wolves ever again. They are friends of mine, and I can come to them at any time they are in danger. That or whenever they call. So I suggest you stay out of our sight, else you meet with an untimely, accidental end." She emphasized the _accidental_ part, making sure he knew that she could and would make it look accidental, so that there was no way of tracing it back to her.

The man nodded swiftly, once more backing away from the girl and her friends. As soon as they were out of his sight, he turned tail and ran.

In the clearing, Hinata burst out laughing, uncaring whether the older man could hear or not. The look on his face had been priceless. And she hadn't stuttered. At first she had been so angry that she hadn't even thought before she spoke. Then she held on to that feeling, enabling her to speak fluently. "That was fun. It really got my adrinaline pumping." She said, her face, however, remained expressionless. It was simply how she had been trained.

The others looked at her like she was insane. "Is that really your definition of fun?" Toboe finally asked.

As her adrinaline slowed, she sent a pitying glance toward them. "I'm sorry you had to see that side of me." She blushed a light crimson as soon as she was positive that Quent had left their hearing range. "It truly isn't how I normally have fun. But it did get rid of one of the storms on the horizon. Did you see the look on his face? I don't think he'll be messing with you four any time in the near future."

Hige gave her a sidelong look. "Those things you said to him. Are they true?" This got the attention of the other three boys; they all focused on the girl before them.

"Which things? The one about me killing him in his sleep? If he doesn't leave you alone, then yes. It is true." She answered, wondering how many more questions she was going to have to answer. That was the precise reason she hoped she would never have to show them her ninja training.

"No, the part about you coming to us whenever we're in danger. Can you really know where we are and how we're faring in battle?"

At this, Hinata chuckled. "Iie, I cannot. That was simply to keep you safe in the future. If he thinks I can find you and immediately get wherever you may be if you're in danger, then he won't mess with you."

"Arigatou, Hinata." Toboe excitedly looked at the faces around him, feeling more at home with this girl than he had since his first human friend had perished.

The Hyuuga allowed them a few more hours to relax in the shade of the trees before heading back toward the Compound for the night.

Quent was still running through the undergrowth, long after he had left the wolves and their newly proclaimed protector. When he was positive that she wasn't following him, he slowed, coming to a stop deep in the woods.

He leaned against one of the thick, ancient pine trees, panting for breath.

He had almost died. Twice. If not for his reaction to the gun, it would have killed him. If not for the kind – _Was it really kindness? _– nature of the ninja he met, he would have died.

Quent had escaped death many times, but never had it been in such close brushes, so near in time to one another.

A rustling in the trees attracted his attention. He looked in the direction he believed it to be coming from. Seeing it was only a hawk, he turned his attention to figuring out where he was. Scanning the surrounding woods, he jumped around the tree, out of view. A man was standing before him.

Black eyes were framed with round, black glasses. His hair was grey, though it didn't seem to be from age, and was pulled back into a ponytail. He had a smirk on his face, as though he were amused at frightening an old man.

His shirt was a purple sleeveless one, with a large collar almost like a bowl. Under this, he wore a white shirt with sleeves down to his elbows. Around his torso was a white cloth wrapped three times around him. His pants were the same color as his overshirt. On his right leg, there was a pouch just like the one the wolves' protector wore. His shoes were almost boot-like in structure. They were black, but they were open-toed. On his forehead, he wore a piece of metal attached to a strip of cloth, also like the girl's, though his was tied around his forehead. Instead of the swirl-like leaf, his had a music note on it.

When the man figured Quent's initial reaction was all that was going to happen, he spoke. "I saw what happened to you with those freaks. That girl is a menace, is she not, Quent?"

Said man did not respond. If he said something wrong, this man would surely kill him as the girl had not. However, he did wonder where the grey haired man learned his name. When the shinobi man realized Quent would not speak, he continued. "I have been trying to find a way to get rid of her. Seeing how you disagreed with her so much so that you were willing to shoot the heiress of her clan, I wondered if you might like to help me." The man smirked once more; this time, though, he preformed hand signs.

When he finished, he shouted "summoning jutsu!" and in his hand appeared a gun, more advanced than the one Quent had been using.

"Join me and this is yours. I get the girl, and you get the mutts." His smirk widened considerably when the old man stepped from behind the tree and reached out to lightly touch the gun.

More confident now, he took the gun from the younger man. "I'll help you. Tell me your name, ninja." The hitai-ate told him that much at least.

"Yakushi Kabuto of Otogakure."

When Hinata arrived home, she got many curious stares from her clansmen, but no one questioned her. She had come home in far worse a state before.

Her clothes were crumpled beyond normal training wrinkles. Her hair was in knots, sticking out in strange places. Her body and clothes were covered with a thick layer of dust from when she had fallen with Toboe to get out of the gun's range. One of her kunai was missing from her weapon pouch, but she doubted anyone would notice.

The wolves seemed to still be relatively clean though Toboe had a layer visible of dust like Hinata's.

When they reached her room, though, Hinata had an idea. She entered her room, telling the pack to wait outside the door for her. When she exited the room again, she was wearing a modest bathing suit, and carrying a few towels.

She led them down a hallway they had never seen before, opening a door and coming out with a larger stack of cloth, and finally leading them out into the sun light at a garden-like place. She told the wolf-boys to sit near at the bench near the door of the garden, on which she put the towels, then she walked to a far corner. She picked up a green garden hose and dragged it to where they sat.

They all jumped away with a slight whimper as a stream of water shot out at them.

By the time they finally caught on to what she was doing, she had put up an advanced genjutsu that Kurenai showed her so that no one would be able to see a true scene. No one would see her with four unknown boys in the village. They would simply see her and the four wolves. She hoped no one would pick up on the chakra, because she had yet to master it. The justu Kurenai had taught to her could not be picked up by the Byakugan, and the chakra used, if done right, would be virtually undetectable.

She walked to the pile of towels and pulled out four pairs of shorts that she had taken from the laundry room, where she had stopped before leading them outside. "I borrowed them from four different members of my family. They won't miss them for today." She turned away as they changed, and remembered to explain that no one would see them as humans if they saw her charges.

She told them such, and received a mischevious look in return from each. She looked at the three wolves before her – _Wait, three?Where did Hige go?_ She wondered.

She soon found the answer to her question. The hose was yanked from her hand and she was almost immediately sprayed with a jet of icy water.

They continued their water fight, laughing and stealing the hose from one another at any chance they were given. This continued until the ground began to turn slippery with mud. The Hyuuga heiress then called an end to their game and handed them all soap, shampoo, and washcloths to clean off with.

Before her eyes, they became wolves, and she rinsed them off with the hose as though she had just been washing the 'dogs'. "The genjutsu I put up will wear off soon, so you need to dry off, then become wolves quickly."

She turned her back once more as they dried off and changed. At their signal, she turned back around and took a towel for herself. She dried her hair and wrapped the towel around her torso. Walking to the door to return inside, she came face to face with Neji, who's hand was raised to open the door.

They stared at each other, before Neji surveyed the scene behind Hinata and spoke. "What are you doing out here?"

"I-I was washing the d-dogs. We w-walked around outside the village today, a-and they got dirty. I figured the l-least I c-could do w-was have fun with it." She said, turning a dull vermillion. She wouldn't look him in the eye. "I-I have to go get d-dressed, Neji-nii-san. I-I'm getting cold." _Any excuse to get away. Anything at all, he will have to accept_. "I-I'll see you later."

She turned back toward the wolves. "Come on, guys." The Hyuuga girl whistled lowly, and they trotted over to stand by her side. She led the way inside, brushing quickly past Neji, who was standing in the doorway still.

As they walked away, she heard him whisper "She didn't stutter at all when she talked to them, and much less than she usually would to me. What is going on…?"

She chuckled quietly, too quiet for the Hyuuga genius to hear. Entering her room, she took a change of clothes and went into the bathroom for a shower.

The wolves stayed in the other room, discussing how different she seemed to be when she was in 'ninja mode', as they refered to it.

Toboe was the one who brought it up. "She seems so different when she's talking about her life as a ninja. And when she's acting it out."

The other three were in agreement. "When she's with us, she's so kind and she cared for our wounds and accepted us as wolves as though it were nothing. She doesn't stutter either." Hige noted. "But when she's with other people of her own village, she can't speak a single sentence without stuttering."

"Did you see the way she defended us against Quent, though? That was completely different from the other two sides of her we've seen. She wasn't stuttering, she wasn't kind, she almost killed him. This girl is fast, cunning, she thinks ahead. How many of us would have been able to come up with anything to say that would keep him away in the future while in battle with him? Which of us would have been able to dodge the bullet and destroy his gun in mere seconds?" Tsume added.

"Do you think this could all be an elaborate act to gain our trust and then kill us? You saw how she pulled off her acting with the hunter. She made him sincerely believe that her dog died. We all saw how good her acting is. She was fake crying one moment, then laughing at how easy he was to trick the next. If I hadn't known better, I would have believed her, too." He looked around at the other three members of his pack, seeing nods from all, though one seemed to be torn between nodding and keeping still.

This time when Hige spoke, Kiba felt it wise to end the discussion, even though he knew they were correct about her acting skills. "She isn't trying to kill us. You see how different she can be, you saw how good an actor she was, but you didn't see her with all emotions bared. When we first met, she was terrified of me. She really thought I would kill her.

"When she offered to heal me, I asked her why. She told me she was following her instincts. She thought that since it was such a feeble reason, I'd kill her. I let her live and it confused her. I could tell. Instinct is never wrong. She isn't going to kill us. If she was, she would have done it already. She would have turned us in, killed us one by one, let Quent kill us, something!"

The other three accepted this, knowing the conversation was drawing to a close. "She is really good at her job." Toboe commented.

"Thank you. I'm not the best though. Only a chunnin." Hinata stepped out of the bathroom holding a hair brush. She approached them. "May I brush out your fur again? If I don't, it'll knot terribly in the morning."

This time, Kiba was the first to nod. Toboe and Hige followed shortly after, remembering how it felt last time. Surprising everyone, even himself, Tsume nodded also, though hesitantly.

They sat in the floor chatting with one another as she gently pulled the brush through the tangles on each wolf. She was careful not to hurt any of them and with her nimble hands, she didn't.

When Tsume's turn came, he was tense as she began to brush out his fur. It was knottier than the others' because his hadn't been brushed the last time. Soon, however, he relaxed into her agile touch. The others were right. It was nice to have their fur brushed.

Upon finishing, she went back into her bathroom and retrieved her own brush. She brushed her own hair until it was void of knots.

All four wolves were relaxing, sprawled out in the Hyuuga girl's floor, when Hinata left to put the clothes back in the laundry room and get their dinner.

When Hinata returned to her room, though, the wolves were asleep. She smiled, leaving the food near them in case they should wake up hungry, and ate her own supper.

She herself was tired, but as she crawled into her bed, she found that she was unable to close her eyes without seeing the frightened face of the man whom she had allowed to live earlier that day.

A chill swept into the room from the window that had not been open when she had left. Puzzled and slightly hesitant to walk over to it, the Hyuuga girl activated her Byakugan.

Catching sight of the familiar form silhouetted by the moonlight, she relaxed. Kiba had draped himself over a chair by the window sill and was looking out at the moon, looking very much like the wolf he was at the moment. She had assumed he was asleep, but now she saw the shallower, more rapid movement of his chest, indicating that he was awake.

She stood, knowing she would be unable to sleep for a while. The Hyuuga heiress walked over toward her window to stand silently by the wolf-boy.

Silence reigned for a few moments. Both sat silently, side-by-side, until Kiba sighed. "You are cold, and wish me to close the window." It was not a question, simply an observation punctuated with a small sorrowful seeming sigh.

"Iie. The window is fine open. I was only wondering why it was that you couldn't sleep." She whispered, not turning, but looking out to the moon.

The white wolf hesitated. Seeing the open look on her face, however, made him decide. She seemed to be at peace with her life the way she lived it. There could be no harm in telling her. One way or another she would know. He had no doubts of that. This way would, hopefully, be less painful.

"The others, my pack, I mean. I was thinking about our conversation this afternoon. All you caught was the end of it." Yellow eyes widened when he saw that the pale eyed creature was nodding as though she had known the entire time.

"I had a feeling you were discussing my occupation the whole time I was showering." Her eyes closed, whether by pain, sadness, sleepiness, or a mixture, Kiba was unsure.

"Do you know what was said?" White fur trembled as the owner held his breath for a moment.

"Iie, but I can only imagine the questions. 'How can we trust her?', 'What happens if she turns on us?', 'What if she's only befriending us to hurt us later?' and so on. It has happened before, so it is not as painful as before.

"This was the whole reason I did not want to show them my training. Civilians watch us sometimes, as we kill mercilessly. It is not like that, though. Each kill we make, injures our sanity. We have no chance to think in battle. It is kill or be killed. The families we have deprived of children, parents, siblings, leaders, they haunts us. Most children, just leaving the ninja acadamy, have seen and caused more death than an average adult civilian."

Kiba sat stunned as she told him what he wished the others of his pack could hear.

"We take no pleasure in what we do. The thrill of the battle is merely an act to put on when one feels as though they have nothing left of their sanity. When it returns, we are awash in guilt. Kiba, I am only a tool for the leaders to use as they see fit to protect the innocence of civilians and their children, while my childhood was lost long ago."

The two let silence settle once more. Hinata knew that she needed sleep, and that Kiba needed to think, so she said a quiet good night, patted his head, and crawled under the light sheets of her bed. After the emotional stress of sharing something no one ever spoken by her before, that was true for all ninja, but almost never spoken of at all, she fell into a light, restless sleep.

The wolf, however, sat up for a much longer time. The girl had given him such insight into her life, simply by explainging what she chose for a living. He had always wondered why some people chose the hard way of life over the easy, but now he thought he could understand.

_Some humans choose hard lives in hopes that the others around them can keep living the easy way. The children of those people, especially in clans it seems, choose to follow in their parents' footsteps, for it is all they have ever known._

He continued along with that train of thought. _This girl is surely only following her clansmen. She is too kind to need to witness such violence._

The soft fabric of the chair seemed to be against him, as were his slowly closing eyes. The last thought he remembered from that night was that the full moon felt wonderful on his pelt, though it did nothing to warm the breeze the open window carried into the room.

**(A/N: There. That was hard to finish, cause I kept getting interrupted and when I came back, I'd lose my train of thought…. [then again, I'm easily distracted…] But any, this time I'll try not to take a month [or more] to update again. I have the ideas, I'm just having a bit of trouble connecting them. But I feel terrible for keeping you from this chapter, so I'm going to go ahead and start writing the next one tonight! A couple of plot twists and character deaths coming up, so I hope I keep y'all interested enough to find out. ^^**

**I actually have no idea whether the passage way exists under the Hyuuga Compound or not. I also have no clue as to whether the justu Hinata used in the garden exists either. I made them up. XD It would be cool if they did exist though…. Yeah. So. That's all I have to say. Hope you enjoyed chapter 7 of Forest Meeting!! ^^)**


	8. A Brush with Death

**(A/N: Ahah! No more plot stalling [is that real?] Anyway, I'm getting the story moving. The last few chapters were all twists and character/relationship development. Now things are actually going to move forward. [I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad about it] lol. So many interjecting thoughts…. I don't own Wolf's Rain, or Naruto, but I do like to think this plot is original. Um….I think there may be a slight spoiler about Quent's dog in this chapter and her relationships with others [I was looking back over the story and realized she completely disappeared, wonder how many people caught that… I didn't until this chapter XD]. Not much to say today, except that I'm pretty tired after finals ending. Enjoy the chapter.)**

Chapter 8

Morning dawned brightly the next day, making all four of the pack wish the window and curtains had been shut the night before. Each was quick to awaken, but slow to begin the day.

The white wolf groaned as he lifted his head, sore from falling asleep in the chair. Standing and jumping off the chair, he put his forepaws on the window sill. After nosing the window closed, he put all four paws on the ground and surveyed the room.

When he noticed that the young Hyuuga woman still lay in bed sleeping, Kiba padded over to the other wolves of his pack. "Do any of you know if she's okay? Hinata always wakes up at the slightest bit of noise, but she still seems to be asleep."

"I don't think she's awake yet. What would be wrong?" Tsume asked, wondering what they would do if she was unwell.

"Nothing, I hope." Kiba stated, sending a glance toward the girl. During the course of the night, she must have kicked the covers off of her, for the only thing covering her were the clothes on her back. Treading up to her sleeping form, he touched a cold nose to the uncovered skin of her forearm. Nothing. He pressed his nosed into her palm, and she still did not move, though he did notice that her skin was freezing. There was nothing he could do for her while stuck as a wolf though, without ripping the covers.

He turned back to his adopted pack. "I'm going to see if I can find someone. I'll be back in a moment." The white wolf dragged the door away from the threshold and walked past it.

Down the hall, he trod silently. Seeing a male with long brown hair walking out of a room nearby, he barked quietly.

Kiba knew the other person could hear him, and was rewarded when he turned around to face the white beast. _This is Hinata's cousin. _He remembered, while at the same time, the young man was thinking, _This is Hinata's charge._

The white wolf barked softly once more, turned around, and walked back to the room from which he came. When the boy didn't follow, he stuck his head back out and looked pointedly at him.

Neji stared at him as though he were crazy, but walked into the room anyway. When he saw that his younger cousin was still asleep, he spoke. "Hinata-sama, what are you still doing asleep? You are always awake long before now."

Nothing. She did not move at all. "Hinata-sama?" Neji approached warily, hoping she was only pulling a prank on him, however unlikely that was. He shook her shoulder, almost expecting her to open her eyes in mirth and laugh at how gullible he was, even though he knew she wouldn't.

He heard the sound of the door closing behind him, looking to see that the 'dog' had entered all the way and had somehow managed to slide it shut before going to sit with the other three.

Bringing his attention back to Hinata, he realized he was beginning to worry. At daybreak, many of the Hyuuga were awake, and some were even in the village already. He needed to wake her quickly, or run the risk of being accused of trying to kill her once more. He did not think that likely, but there was no way to be sure. He knew that with him in the room and Hinata unable to awaken, that someone would accuse him.

The thought trail led him to another. He could send the dog to find Hiashi-sama, then leave the room without being seen. That way some one would be able to send for help and he would not be blamed.

He turned to find three pairs of eyes centered on his cousin, while the final pair of yellow eyes was on him. He shivered slightly under the scrutiny of his human-like eyes. "You."

The white wolf lifted his head in recognition. "You understand me." Again, moved to convey the fact that he did.

The chocolate haired young man flinched imperceptibly, remembering the words he'd spoken on the day Hinata went to train with her team. "Find her father. If I'm caught here, he'd likely blame me for this. Find Hiashi-sama and bring him here." He ordered.

The white 'dog' stood, turning to leave the room. He was stopped, however, when Neji came up behind him and held the door closed. "Thank you." He said quietly before letting go of the sliding door and watching in awe as the creature carefully hooked a claw in the crack between the door and the wall, pulling his paw back to effectively open the door.

Kiba padded down the hall, knowing the way toward Hiashi's office, the place they had visited weeks ago to first see if he could stay. Seeing the door to the room, he slid it open and entered. The man was sitting at his desk, intent on the characters he seemed to be writing on a scroll.

When his door slid open without knock, he assumed that it was an elder, coming to speak with him of a political matter.

When the man didn't move, Kiba barked quietly. This time, the man's head shot up to see what had entered his office. Seeing the 'dog' he glared at it. "What is my daughter thinking, letting these beasts wander the Compound?"

When the white furred 'dog' kept sitting at his door, barking softly every few moments, he angered. Standing, he stalked toward the creature. "Go back to wherever you came from, mutt."

Kiba turned, beginning to walk away under the other man's scrutiny. He paused, hoping the he would catch the hint. Barking once more, louder this time, he motioned with his head in the direction of Hinata's room.

Almost ready to chase the beast away, Hiashi decided to follow it, simply to be sure it returned to where it belonged.

When the man began to move toward him, the white wolf led him all the way to his daughter's room. Both entered, and Kiba blocked the door off to stop him from leaving.

Hiashi saw the other three 'dogs' clustered around the bed, sitting on the floor in silence, each pair of eyes on the girl lying on the bed. Approaching warily, he saw why. The girl was asleep, but she was deathly pale looking. Reaching out to lay a hand on her arm, he recoiled at the chill he felt. Her skin was freezing.

He put a hand over her mouth, and upon finding her breathing, released a sigh of slight relief. The older man felt her forehead, and confirmed that something was wrong.

Abruptly spinning around, he tried to leave the room to call Tsunade. Kiba leapt to his feet and growled, so that Hiashi was unable and unwilling to pass. Each time he took a step, the wolf bared his teeth and growled louder.

Finally, understanding why the beast was blocking him, he spoke. "You understand us." Once more, Kiba affirmed this knowledge. He cared not for the consequences this could bring later, but simply wanted the safety of the young woman whom had fought to protect him and his pack many times.

"Then let me leave." He heard her father say. Just as the wolf was beginning another fierce growl, he continued. "I need to fetch Hokage-sama. I am unsure what is wrong with her and I am no medic-nin." Watching in wonder as the 'dog's' demeanor immediately relaxed and it moved from the doorway, Hiashi took his leave.

Kiba turned to the most constant family he had ever known. "Let's just hope that this woman can help her." He said darkly.

"Did you complete your mission?" A voice sounded from the shadows.

The two men jumped slightly, recoiling from the unknown male voice. "We came close." Was all the shorter of the two could offer. Both were masked, so height was the only way the owner of the voice could tell them apart.

"Why is she not here, then?" It came again from the shadows, but the voice was different. This one was harsh with cold fury.

The two seemed to be debating on exactly what to tell them and what to leave out. The furious voice spoke out again. "Answer the question. Now!"

The taller one spoke now. "The first half of the plan was accomplished, but we were unable to bring her back for by the time we were sure she was too weak to fight us, the wolf at the window awoke and we were forced to run."

"You fools! Now they are going to be more careful and will be on the watch for us!" Kabuto stepped from the shadows, Quent following close behind with a deep scowl on his face.

"Now do you finally see why I wish the wolves dead?" He asked rhetorically. _I wonder if Blue finally realized who she is… Could that be why she has abandoned me?_ He almost growled in anger and regret that she learned at all.

Kabuto glowered at him. "This is merely a setback in my plan because of these imbeciles. Do not fear, we will get what we want."

Tsunade watched Hiashi storm into her office without a knock. "What gives you the right to barge in here without permission, Hiashi-sama?" She asked, then observed his heaving chest and somewhat panic-stricken eyes, although his voice was cool and even.

"My daughter has taken ill. She would not awaken this morning, but is still breathing. I wish that you would come check on her."

This explained it. In the privacy of her office, he could show her exactly what no one else would ever see: his love for his eldest child. She looked so like her mother that Tsunade knew that to lose her would seem as if he had lost his wife once more.

She held his eyes for a moment. "I will see to her. Hiashi-sama you must remember that I could have been in an important meeting when you burst into my office. Next time knock." She ordered before standing and walking toward the Hyuuga Compound with Hiashi trailing close behind. The people of the village watch curiously as they rushed through the streets, not quite running, but clearly on important buisness.

Tsunade could count the number of times that the proud Hyuuga leader had been seen following her through the streets for an urgent matter on a single hand. In her years of serving as Hokage, and of being a sannin, there were few people she had met as proud as this man.

If he were asking for help, something must be seriously wrong. This was the thought that rang throughout the village that morning. Many passed by the Hyuuga Compound that day, wanting to act casual as they tried to get a glimpse of exactly what happened to make Hiashi so distraught as to fetch the Hokage.

The blonde woman pondered such as they stepped up to the gate of the compound moments after leaving the Hokage Tower, both immediately let through the gates. From there, Hiashi lead the way to the young heiress' room.

Immediately upon opening the door, Hiashi stepped aside to allow Tsunade to enter the room.

The first thing she noticed when she entered the room was the fact that eight pairs of inhuman eyes followed her every movement.

Looking for the source, she gave the room a once-over. The woman spotted the four 'dogs' all sitting around the bed where Hinata's sleeping form lay. Tsunade approached the bed, pushing chakra to her hand so that she could send it to the Hyuuga girl's body to try to diagnose the problem.

When the woman's hand began to glow with a greenish light and she approached the motionless form on the bed, Toboe leapt to his feet, thinking that the blonde was going to hurt his friend.

He opened his mouth, teeth catching the green light and glinting eerily. Growling, he prepared to attack should she take another step.

She didn't get his message, though, and continued to approach, thinking of all the possible problems that could cause a state such a the Hyuuga heiress'. She had let her guard down within the walls of her village.

Toboe snarled once more, leaning back on his haunches before flying through the air at her before anyone could react.

The hokage was knocked to the ground. Toboe bared his teeth at her with an open mouth.

Tsunade, unable to move from the weight of the surprisingly heavy 'dog', had nothing to fear, and she knew it. There was a clan leader, the entire clan itself, plus all her chakra to defend with. It was, however, surprising enough that she could not immediately react.

She didn't have to. A white blur flew over her almost right after the first 'dog' attacked, but knocked the skinny, yet heavy 'dog' off of her. She rose to a sitting position and turned her head to observe them during the few seconds afterward.

It was the white wolf. The one Hinata had originally brought into her office. He had pushed his own pack mate off of her so that she could heal his caretaker.

These were such odd animals that Tsunade felt she could study them forever and still not be able to tell where their loyalty lay. She knew the 'dog' had been faking kindness in her office, but she had also seen a deep seated trust of one another in both pairs of eyes.

Hinata knew something she wasn't telling. Tsunade leapt to her feet upon that thought. How could she just sit and watch the animals as a girl, the Hyuuga heiress, may be dying?

She turned to see Hiashi's reaction to this, but all his attention was focused on his daughter. He was now sitting on the bed, the other two pack members laying on either side of Hinata.

The moment Tsunade touched the skin of her stomach, she knew what was wrong. "Hiashi she has hypothermia. How could she have caught hypothermia if it was so warm in this house all night long?"

Hiashi was speechless. "I have no idea. I check this morning, and it was only slightly cooler in here than the rest of the house."

Both adults' heads twisted toward the window as they heard a distinct whine. The other brown dog, the fluffier looking one with the collar and tag around its neck, was standing by the window. The clan head stood from the bed to inspect it.

The latch was not closed all the way. This probably meant the wind had been blowing in the room since nightfall. _Someone caused this._ "The window has been open all night." He spoke.

"This was probably an attack to kidnap her, then, without causing a disturbance." The buxom older woman answered his unspoken question. "It was most likely Kabuto.

"We need to get her warm again. She needs to be fully recovered before we can leave her by herself again."

Upon this sentence, the grey wolf that had been sitting beside the bed during all that transpired that morning suddenly leapt up beside her. Laying near enough to her back so that he could feel the cool touch of her skin on his fur.

The others took this cue and surrounded her unconscious form, each warming her more effectively than a blanket could ever hope. Tsunade moved them –or rather, gestured to where- they would need to sit to be most effictive.

Slowly, hours later, Hinata began to awaken. Groggy and cold, with a terrible headache, she opened her eyes to find herself surrounded by fur. At first, she tried to sit, but found herself too weak to try.

Her father, whom had stayed by her side until she woke, decided to speak now. "Rest, Hinata."

Her eyes immediately flew to his face. "I-I'm sorry, Father. I-I've slept late a-again, but I'm not f-feeling well t-today." Her voice cracked in her dry throat.

"Here." He handed her a cup of warm green tea. She brought it to her lips, leaning against the wall behind her to sit up. Swallowing felt wonderful, and warmed her slightly. "Tsunade said to give it to you when you woke up." He continued after she had finished over half of it.

This brought her attention back to her surroundings. Unaware that something had been wrong, she looked confused. The wolves were clustered around her, _as though they are blanketing me_… There her thoughts trailed off.

"Father, w-what happened? Why d-did Tsunade-sama come h-here?" She wondered aloud, still feeling as though she were slightly dazed.

"You would not wake up this morning." The young girl's eyes widened, and he still continued. "The white dog that you take care of came to get me."

He watched his daughter as she faced it and whispered a name. "Kiba." Said 'dog' raised his head in acknowledgement before laying back down at her side, still blanketing her.

When he had her attention once more, he continued. "She told us you had caught stage 2 hypothermia, that you needed to be warmed quickly, or you may die. If –what did you call him?- Kiba had gotten me even an hour later, she said that there would have been nothing we could have done to help you."

Hinata's eyes widened. _Is this simply because I left the window open all night for Kiba?_

Hiashi continued once more. "She said it was most likely the doing of Kabuto, but that since your dogs were here they couldn't get in during the night without waking them and causing us to be on alert. Even though we are anyway." He added as an after thought. His voice gentle, now, he spoke once more before standing. "I'm glad you're safe."

He spun on his heel and walked from the room, leaving Hinata alone with her charges. "Thank you, Kiba." She whispered.

The white wolf nodded. "We all knew you needed help when we couldn't wake you up. I went into the hall; it was your cousin who told me to get your father."

Hinata made a motion of acknowledgement, knowing her cousin's reasoning behind this. She was still feeling a bit weak, but otherwise, there were no signs of her having had hypothermia. However, she still had the headache she had awoken with. She closed her eyes once more and drifted off once more, this time with the warm knowledge of four protectors to keep her safe -_and warm_- until she awoke again.

"Now. Do you two understand my orders? The last pair to take this on came back empty-handed. You know how I feel about that, am I correct?" His voice was falsely sugar coated. The men before him knew not to mess up. Unless they had the living, unconscious body of the Hyuuga heiress, they would never again see Otogakure.

The hunter nin knew exactly how Yakushi-sama delt with subjects who were unable to complete his missions. Neither would speak of it, but if asked outside the borders of their village, they would simply say that no one had ever seen them again.

The two chose the masks needed to complete their mission as ANBU hunter nins. The bear and the rat left the village under the cover of the waning crescent moon.

Choosing to stake out the living pattern of their target, they would attack when the moon disappeared from the sky on the night of the new moon.

What the Oto nin did not know was that Konoha was preparing a large army, because now that the hokage knew what the sound nin were after, there was no doubt about a war. They would have to maneuver themselves carefully, so as not to arouse suspiscion that she knew exactly who attacked them.

Tsunade told all border patrols to be on the look out for foreign ninja in the area, and that they were to immediately be brought to interrogation, not killed.

While she was taking these precautions, Hinata was being kept under constant watch at the Hyuuga Compound. Neji, Hanabi, even her father were pitching in.

No one wanted her kidnapped. Whether they liked to admit it or not, the heiress was strong and cunning, but she knew when to be kind and help also.

The wolves also. They were unallowed to leave Hinata's presence, even though they had healed completely by the second day of this arrangement.

All five were secretly content that they were able to stay together longer. None mentioned it to the others, or even brought the subject of talk near it, but they all felt the same.

On the fifth day of their confinement, Hinata brought up what had been on her mind since the night before she had slept with an open window. "If you all distrusted me, why did you save my life?"

The three doubters looked at one another guiltily. Tsume spoke up, believing his response to be genius. "Why shouldn't we have? You took us in when we were injured and at a loss for what to do. You saved our lives and taught us much. We were in your debt."

"So then, you saved my life to repay a debt, when you believed it could still have cost your own lives in the process?" Hinata wanted the real reason.

Toboe sighed. "We were fearful of your abilities. But seeing our leader so worried over you snapped everything back into perspective, for me at least." He looked down in regret. "I apologize."

The other two who doubted her sincerity also made like movements, coupled with apologies.

Hinata smiled with understanding and let the matter drop, sure that was all the truth she would receive.

A knock sounded on Hinata's door exactly one week after she had been put under supreme supervision by her family and Hokage.

She had been speaking with the wolves, all five growing incredibly bored with being stuck in the same spot for a consistant week. She immediately shut her mouth when the door slid open.

Her sister stepped into the room. "Hinata-chan, Otou-san says he wants to speak with you in his office. He said to bring your dogs." She looked at the animals surrounding her elder sister warily, before fleeing the room.

_The younger girl is never going to get over finding Toboe in the hallway. Poor child. _ Was Hige's simple thought as he, Tsume, Kiba, and Toboe followed the raven haired older sister into the foretold room.

The cusion on which she sat, bowed, and straightened to speak with her father was directly in front of his desk. No positioning would have allowed them to be able to speak with her during the meeting at any time.

When he spoke, however, this fact was the furthest thing from their minds. "Tsunade-sama has ordered me to tell you that Konoha ninja have captured two ninja of Kabuto's. Ibiki has gathered that they have been here a little over a week, and they were planning to attack you tonight, on the night of the new moon for less light.

"Ibiki told the hokage that when he searched their minds, if they failed to kidnap you, Kabuto would attack our village within the following two weeks after their alloted time ran out." The scowl on the Hyuuga leader's face was enough to convince Hinata that he was certain the attack would happen, and her father wanted to personally see to the killing of the Yakushi.

"S-So you a-are saying that I-I should prepare m-myself for b-battle and be on c-constant lookout f-for him, since h-he's probably going t-to attack in three w-weeks." Hinata gathered her courage that she had been working on with her charges and spoke to him without him asking a question.

Her father's facial expression never changed, but she could see in his eyes a surprised look, but covered nicely with a nod. A gleam of pride shown in his pale white eyes when he looked back at her. "You are dismissed."

Hinata left the room, almost tripping over the large blue dog standing just inside her doorway. About to bend down and look for tags, she paused at the growling wolves behind her.

Hyuuga eyes widened as she truly looked at the small half-wolf who had been with Quent during his first and last visit to her cabin. "What are you doing here?" She asked it, wondering if it could speak.

"I am Blue, a half wolf. Ojii-san despises wolves. I cannot be around him to cause him pain any longer now that I have realized this." The half wolf sighed as she flopped down on Hinata's threshold.

"So you came to seek refuge with the wolf lover?" Hinata questioned gently. She could well imagine the pain of spending one's entire life with someone, only to find out that you are a part of whatever they despise most.

Blue's head lifted slightly. "I did not come here seeking pity. I came here to find those of my kind. I care not whether you accept me, but simply give me compainionship. I am alone otherwise."

Hige came around Hinata. "If it is okay with Hinata, it will be fine with me, Blue." He licked her ear and tried to coerce her to stand away so the rest of the occupants of the room could enter.

Hinata smiled as she watched them. She walked into the room. "It will be fine with me. Maybe it would be nice to have some girl company instead of all boys." She sighed melodramatically and put a hand to her forehead, making each of the five wolves laugh.

By the end of their first day together, Blue realized that she had made the right decision in seeking these five out. She found a friend, a possible love, and a compainionship that she had missed since her family life with Quent had been destroyed by her own kind.

The following two weeks flew by. Before they knew it, the threat that Yakushi Kabuto posed to Hinata, her village, and, in turn, the wolves grew until even the village civillians knew something was wrong.

By the middle of the third week since the talk with her father, Hinata knew that everyone, human and animal alike, was anxious and jumpy.

They were standing on the edge of a war, and soon, they would be knocked into the canyon below, officially beginning the war.

**(A/N: I wasn't really sure how to end this chapter, so I decided to leave it at that [rather cheesy] note. I know I'm kind of rushing things between Hige and Blue, but the series didn't really show much of their relationship. So I'm just going to model Wolf's Rain's take on it and let y'all know that they like each other but that's about it. XD So sorry if you're a HigeBlue fan. I can put a bit more in at the beginning of the next chapter [or in a flashback to continue the model] if you like, but for me to know you have to tell me. ^^ Review on your opinion? I like to keep my readers involved in my story writing, that way I can finish it to satisfy everyone to the fullest extent of my abilities. Hope you enjoyed this installment [lol] of Forest Meeting!)**


	9. Kiba's Decision

**(A/N: Hm. Writer's block. –gags– I greatly dislike it. Makes updating hard. I asked myself how I could possibly have everything planned out, the completely go blank when I open up Microsoft Word…. I've yet to find my answer. I've discovered that I cannot connect two major events with itty bitty events, but I can add in insignifigant little bits when I'm just typing and letting my imagination flow. But that method doesn't work with the connection of two main events. So, therein, I have writer's block. It's made this chapter long in coming to me, so I apologize for any delay.**

**Also, I've been super busy lately. I have wonderful news. Well, to me it is. I went on my first date!! My boyfriend is amazing, and I'm not afraid to tell everyone. ^^ I've been on cloud nine since last night. But yall won't be after you finish this chapter. It ends rather abruptly on a cliff hanger.**

**I'm sorry, but I figured yall would like some sort of post to let you know I'm continuing to work on this story. I'll TRY to hurry with the next chapter, but I can't make any promises now that track has started.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. –frowns–)**

Chapter 9

"Hm, I believe it's time we take a visit to Konoha to see what is taking my people so long to get the girl and return." The Otokage turned to his companion. "Quent, grab your gun. I'll go get the squads selected for this specific reason. Its time to start some chaos. We leave by nightfall, under the cover of the new moon." They had been planning for weeks on this subject; there was no way their plan could fail.

All gathered at the gate were unaware of what a long week was ahead of them. "Move out!" Was the order given, and all obeyed it.

"Any day now, though probably under the cover of night, Otogakure ninja will be coming to attack our village. We must be prepared. This is going to be a long week. I'm assigning extra guards to the wall, so enjoy your rest whenever you can. We have to assume the worst will happen." Tsunade spoke to the many ANBU, Jounin, and Chunin standing before her.

They were on the roof of the Hokage Tower, all waiting for orders from their leader. Each shinobi knew that Kabuto was a powerful being, but none knew just how shook up their Hokage was over this. So many ninja died everyday, be it for power or their village, and Tsunade knew that some of the faces before her would never be seen alive again. This was sobering enough, but it was all to stop one man from becoming powerful enough to defeat a Sanin and her village. _Why have things come to this, to so many young people dying?_ She called this meeting with the intentions of warning them about the upcoming battle, not knowing that it would submerge her thoughts so morbidly.

All Kabuto wanted out of this was simply to kidnap Hinata, to gain the Byakugan. It was amazing to the Hokage that anyone could go to such lengths to aquire power.

There was no way she could let him succeed, though. That would spell even more danger to the ninja world. Plus, if she did nothing, then the Hyuuga clan could leave Konoha, and no longer would they have any widely known, prominent bloodline limits in their village, protecting them from outside invasion.

They would have lost both the Sharingan and the Byakugan in the small timespan of seven short years. There was no way Tsunade could let anything like that happen. She determined to do everything within her power to save the Hyuuga heiress and protect Konoha's way of life.

Turning her mind back to the task at hand, the Hokage looked out over the ninja that had gathered before her. She quickly assigned some of the ANBU as border patrol and ordered them to report even the slightest disruption in the forest.

"You are all dismissed. I want the rest of you to be sure to stay rested and alert. This is not practice, we are gambling a lot on winning this upcoming battle." Had this been a less dire situation, her surrounding shinobi would have had a good laugh over this statement. Hokage-sama loved to gamble, yet she always lost. That would be a terrible way to look forward to the upcoming clash.

At the moment, though, all that met this was a grim smile and the disappearance of all porcelain masks after her final word.

As soon as the last of her ninja disappeared, she let down her façade, looking more tired than Shizune had ever seen her.

The younger woman did not want to disturb the Hokage in her moment of peace, but there was a message that she had to deliver. "Tsunade-sama?"

"What is it, Shizune?" The blonde turned around to look at her worried assistant. Giving her a minute, bleak smile, the elder nodded for Shizune to speak.

"Hiashi-sama wanted to speak to you about your plans to protect his daughter. He ordered me to deliver the memo to you without delay." The purple clad brunette sighed deeply. "I told him you were in the middle of handing out the orders, but he refused to leave me in peace unless I–" Words ceased to flow as she caught the vulnerable look on her master's face.

"Shizune, tell Hiashi-sama I'll be with him in a few moments." The assistant was met not with brown eyes, but with the back of her Hokage garb.

"Hai, Tsunade-sama." Shizune conceeded, wanting to ask about the look, but knowing that her leader wanted privacy. She bowed deeply before turning to leave the roof top.

Shizune delivered the intended message to Hiashi and departed. She couldn't help but wonder what had been going through her leader's mind.

What she didn't know was that Tsunade was glad that Shizune wasn't a mind reader. After the younger girl left the roof, the blonde was free to think unhindered.

She was reflecting on the battle between her, Kabuto, Jiraya, and Naruto mere days before she had accepted their proposition to become Godaime. The Hokage remembered how she had frozen up at the sight of blood, praying that such a thing wouldn't happen this time.

A bird flew past the sun above, casting the Hokage in a shadow, causing her to jerk from her thoughts. She sighed, knowing she would have to face this some time. With that, she left to speak with the Hyuuga Clan leader.

Each being moved sliently through the lush undergrowth, wary of each branch, leaf, and twig on the ground. Their silence was a necessity, not an option. Even the slightest noise, the simplest trace that they had passed by, could give them away.

This would not be terrible if they had been with anyone else, but Kabuto was willing to kill anyone, even one of his own, should he think they would cause the entire group to be found.

Very few followed the Otokage willingly. Fear could do wonderful and terrible things to a person. The ones who took pleasure in killing, pain, torture, were the high ranking officers of Otogakure's army. All others, recruited by fear alone, were mere extras, to hold of the weaker ninja of Konohagakure.

This was a mission that depended on silence. They flew in on silent wings, ravens in the dark of night. No sound escaped any of them, not even Quent.

**Flashback**

"_Quent, on this mission, you will not be walking, for you have not been trained the way my ninja have. You are simply a hunter of wolves. The way you've been trained, you would have a chance with the beasts, but there would be no hope if you were to travel by foot in ninja territory. You will be carried by one of my snakes into the Land of Fire." Kabuto ordered, summoning the snake before the men._

_Looking warily at it, Quent felt a chill run down his spine. What if what he was doing was not the right thing? Never before had he questioned himself in such a way._

_The time to leave came and went; Quent could no longer question whether he should back out, everything was already set in motion._

**End Flashback**

Finally, the army arrived at the area designated as the rest spot, ending their travel that night. The sound ninja set up camp, and as soon as he lay down, Quent was asleep. However, none were aware that they were being watched.

Kiba silently fled from the incoming army. He had merely gone out to scout a bit, acquaint himself better with his surroundings. He knew he had to warn Hinata and Konoha, but he had no idea as to how to go about that. The white wolf could not simply start talking, but neither could he have Hinata speak for him. It would make her look as though she disobeyed orders, or that she was ungrateful of all that was being done for her.

_That's it! I'll find Neji and make sure he knows!_ This thought drove him onward, toward the safety and promise of the village walls.

He crossed into the village through the tunnel Hinata had shown them three weeks ago, directly into the Hyuuga Compound. When he arrived near the door of Hinata's room, however, he realized that he had no means of communicating without said girl speaking for him.

On a spur-of-the-moment decision, he entered the Hyuuga heiress' room. He spoke the moment he entered, finding five pairs of eyes instantly drawn to him. "I'm going to tell your hokage of our secret. It will make information gathering and reporting much easier for her if she doesn't have to worry about keeping track of five dogs in the middle of a reconsaience mission."

Those before him stared as though he had gone mad.

When she finally regained her voice, Blue questioned him. "How could you say that? After all you've gone through to keep everyone from knowing who we are, how could you want their leader to know? After all the stories and lies Hinata told to keep you safe, how could you throw it all away?"

"To keep her safe, that's how." Kiba replied with a blunt firmness.

No words could be found to argue with him. The white wolf had made up his mind. "Hinata, you'll need to come with me, so will the rest of the pack. Please think of a way to make her accept our help. I don't want to endanger my pack along with myself." He bowed his head in fear to her reaction, but he need not have. She agreed easily, seeing how much this favor meant to him.

The Hyuuga girl left the room, searching for Neji. Finding him in the kitchen, she spoke. "Nii-san, would you escort me to the Hokage, onegai? I wish to speak with her."

Upon Neji's yes, she called her charges to her and followed him toward the Hokage Tower.

Leaving the Hyuuga Compound saw them into the village; it had been in a panic ever since the day Tsunade had called the meeting with her ANBU. Making their way through the streets was growing ever tougher. Civilians were all gathering supplies in case of a disaster, out at the many sidewalk shops.

When they eventually came to the desired building, they climbed to Tsunade's office. When Hinata was allowed entrance with her charges, Neji decided to remain outside.

"Tsunade-sama?"

The woman at the desk glanced up from her work, surprised that the younger woman would seek her out at such a time. "Hai, Hinata-san?"

"May I tell you something? It is about these dogs." The raven haired young lady admitted, glancing downward guiltily.

"What is it?" Tsunade inquired gently. She had known that Hinata had been giving her half truths.

"They are not dogs. They are wolves." The Hyuuga heiress had decided on the way to the Tower that she would take a blunt approach. She was glad, for Tsunade was a blunt person, and her explaination matched the Hokage's personality perfectly.

"Wolves? This is what you were hiding from me? This is not a problem, they are simply wilder than we originally assumed. Don't look so guilty over that." The woman sighed in relief.

"That's not all." The Hyuuga admitted. She looked around warily. "Please do not immediately follow through with your first reaction." She begged.

Tsunade tensed. There was something more? "I'll do my best."

"They are not wolves in the sense that we know them. They are-" Here she paused, wondering how she could word her next sentence so that she wouldn't worry her village's leader. "They are different." She finally decided.

The blonde woman in the Hokage robes narrowed her eyes. "Different how?"

"They are human also."

Tsunade looked at the girl before her as though she had lost her mind. "You are trying to tell me that they are human? That they can speak, walk on two legs, and understand every word we say? You have been spending too much time with Kiba-kun. I should send for Ibiki, to check your sanity."

"You told me you would not follow your first thoughts. I have proof if you'd like. The five of them sit before you. Talk to them; ask them questions. They might even change for you." The girl gave the pack a pointed look before turning back to her leader.

Tsunade decided to humor the poor girl. Surely she had been hearing things after spending three weeks with wolves as her only company. "Okay then. What is your name?" She asked, pointing to the smaller, blue dog.

"Blue, ma'am." She answered, stunning the Hokage completely.

Regaining her voice, she ordered the blue wolf to change for her.

Before her stood a human with mocha colored skin. She had short, dark brown hair that spiked in random directions, even into her light blue eyes. Around her neck, she wore a red scarf and silver necklace, with the collar of her coat unfolded and covering to the top of her neck. The coat was long and a navy blue in color, covering most of her body. A belt buckled at her waist showed her figure, while bottom part of the coat looked like a skirt, ending at her mid-thighs. A pair of long boots the same color as her coat completed her outfit, ending just above her knees and giving her a wilder apperance. She bowed to the Hokage, knowing the importance of first impressions.

"At your service, Hokage-sama."

"What are five wolf-people doing in my village? Hinata, did you know this from the start? How?" The Hokage demanded, leaving no time for answers until she finished with her list of questions.

"They were injured after a battle with other, non-shinobi humans. I offered to take care of Kiba, and he accepted on the condition that I could not tell anyone of their identities. I could not leave him out there to just die. The rest of them just came to me. I did know from the start. I followed my instinct, and it has saved my life more than once. Being accepted without conditions has improved my self confidince also."

Tsunade stared at the young woman before her, noticing for the first time that the younger had not stuttered once in her presence. She decided to ponder this at a later time, however, when Hinata spoke once more.

"The only question left, Tsunade-sama, is whether you will continue to let them stay and help in this war, knowing what you know now."

**(A/N: I'm sorry! I'm out of time tonight, got to go to bed! I would love to add more, but I figure: something is better than nothing, right??? Please don't be too mad?? Onegai?**

**I'll try to get the next chapter started and finished as soon as possible. I'm swamped right now, but still on cloud nine! (: (: Hope you enjoyed this installment of Forest Meeting!)**


	10. The Battle

**(A/N: Uggh. It's been forever since I've been able to type on this! I miss writing Forest Meeting soooooo much! It feels wonderful to be able to immerse myself in this plot once again. I have an actual excuse for one month that I've been gone, and that is school work. It was the end of the school year (about a month ago) and I had a ton of end of the year stuff to do. I had a huge test and writing in English class, and it took me three weeks. Then the other stuff I had to do for my other three classes took a week. I have no excuse about the other three months. I guess I was just being lazy. Though because of that, I made this chapter 15 pages instead of the regular 9.**

**Warning: Character death. Hopefully this is a tear-jerker chapter.**

**I want to thank ****Demoness-MarlstonWells69ner for putting my lack of writing into perspective. I can't believe I haven't updated this for 4 months! I hadn't realized how long it had been until Demoness pointed it out.**

**I am soooo sorry for the delay [or whatevery you call it], especially since I left the last chapter at such a cliff hanger…. Also, if it doesn't connect very well, or if my writing style seems to have changed, it's because I wrote the first few pages four months ago, and the rest very recently. Again, sorry for the inconvience.)**

Chapter 10

Tsunade came to her feet to approach Hinata and the wolves. "You have put me in a predicament that I would wish to avoid. This matter is pressing, during a crisis no less." The Hokage took a deep breath, intending to continue, but paused.

Hinata had also prepared to speak. "I owe my life to them, as they do to me. I saved Toboe from a gun, four of them from the shooter, I gave Blue a home. They will not betray us, so long as I am attached to this village."

"Nor shall she betray us." The white wolf spoke, human before them all. "We got help when she would not awaken, protected her in the night as best we could. By my pride as a wolf, until the day you set harm upon us, we will not deceive you. My pack and I have formed a bond with your ninja, Hinata. Tsunade, we wish to help you win this war. We have stayed here for over two months now and done nothing to lose your trust. Ponder that before decreeing one way or the other."

The blonde sighed once more, turning her back on the six and flopping back into her chair. She brought a hand to her forehead. "Hinata-san, I trusted your judgement on bringing these d-" The woman paused, rethinking her words "-wolves into my village two months ago. They have done no harm within those months, and it seems as though they will not be a danger; however, at the first sign of their betrayal, they will be sent away and you shall be put under ANBU scrutiny.

"I cannot lie to you and say that I can stop the village elders from wanting to kill them, but I will banish them before the council can do so. Convincing them to bend the rules will be much easier."

"Hai, Tsunade-sama. I accept these terms." The raven haired young woman turned to her charges-turned-friends for their answer.

Each one agreed, astonishing the buxom older woman each time they spoke.

Once the wolves' fate had been decided, Kiba spoke out. "Hokage-sama, I was out scouting earlier this morning. I discovered troops lead by a grey haired young man with a music note on his headband, in the place where your swirl is located."

Said woman's eyes widened as she stood once again; this time, however, in a panic. She dismissed the six, calling for ANBU units within the village the moment the door shut behind them.

"Kabuto's been spotted on Konoha soil. I want you all to search every inch of land for this threat, and the one who brings proof of his death will be promoted as squad leader." As she spoke, she could sense the tension rising between the ANBU in the room. The village leader could sense the excited looks behind the masks. "Dismissed." The moment the word left her mouth, they all left the room in puffs of smoke.

As the smoke cleared, Tsunade sat back in her chair, lay her head down, and slept.

Hinata and the wolves almost flew back to the Hyuuga Compound. Arriving inside, she turned to the five furry creatures beside her. "Tsunade-sama took that very well."

"How can you tell?" Hige inquired, tilting his head in confusion.

"She didn't immediately pull out a bottle of Saké to drink." Hinata chuckled as she pictured the way she thought that meeting was going to play out.

By the time they arrived back at her room, the wolves had decided amongst themselves that one of them would always be out in the forest on the look out for the Oto army.

Toboe took first watch, since it was the earliest; this way, he could have a semi-normal sleep schedule. Hige took second watch, and finally Tsume took third. Kiba had already taken watch, so he was to stay behind and rest. Blue was to stay near Hinata at all times, so she was allowed to stay within the village instead of traveling the forest on watch.

Toboe scoured the forest, looking for any sign of Oto's main force. He was sure that he and his pack, along with the shinobi (as he learned that the ninja of Hinata's village were called) would be enough to protect his newest friend. He kept watch in order to keep his friend safe. The brown wolf knew that it would be worth it. In his mind, Hinata had been one of the pack the moment she had calmed him down in the Inuzuka's clinic.

Tension in the wolf boy's body ran high until his shift was over. He hurried back to the Hyuuga Compound in order to send the next watch out as soon as possible. He kept his eyes peeled until the moment Hige left the compound.

"Ne, Hinata?" He whispered the moment things settled back down. Toboe looked at her intently over his muzzle, wondering how she was reacting to all the protection and exertion of her village to keep her safe.

"Hai, Toboe-kun? What is it? Did something happen? You aren't injured from your watch, are you?" Her worried gaze passed over his fur, eyes raking across his pelt as if she could see an injury underneath.

"Nothing happened. I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. Your village has such strong bonds. How did you form such tight bonds with so many people? They're all willing to die for you." The brown wolf stated in wonder as he stared at her pale face.

"We are shinobi. If we cannot trust our allies and closest friends, how can we possibly fight our enemies? If we do not have trust for one another, how can we fight on the same side? I am okay. This battle would have happened sooner or later; the only thing my Byakugan did was speed up the process and bring the war out into the open." She tilted her head to the side, wondering if he understood what she was trying to say.

The brown wolf nodded his head, looking thouroughly abashed at the question now that he realized her answer was simply common sense. How could someone trust another with their lives and not form a bond with them? "I understand." He gave her a wolf's smile and settled down to rest; his day had been long, and he was ready to sleep.

The moon was just beginning to rise when he spotted them: shadows against the slight silvery light. Normally, he would think nothing of it, but tonight, he was on the lookout with both his eyes and nose for the ninja who wanted to take Hinata away from his pack.

Tsume, who had left for watch a mere hour before he found them, left the undergrowth silently, committing to memory the place he had seen them.

He ghosted into the village with silent paws; his grey coloring helped him with that task. He traversed the village, headed toward the Hokage Tower.

Rushing up the stairs, he headed straight for Tsunade's office. Cautiously, he pawed at the door, whining almost silently, yet knowing that she would hear. The door was opened, and he slipped into the room.

Quitely, he spoke into the shadowy interior. "They're on the move. Soon, they will be upon the village gates."

The Hokage nodded her head slightly, only enough so that he could tell she understood. To an outsider, it might have seemed that she was falling asleep, then catching herself and awakening, or maybe even nodding at some idea that she had come up with.

Tsume's grey fur allowed him a cover in the shadows that none of the other wolves possessed. It was as though he had no earthly body, merely a communicative spirit exchanging words with a living being.

Delivering his message, he left the tower; he wanted to head back to the compound to make sure the pack was prepared for the attack on the village.

He sprinted through the village once more, silently; he could easily pass as a ninja assassin. The grey wolf arrived in the Hyuuga Compound in record time in order to complete his self-given mission.

Immediately, he reported to the white furred pack leader all the information he gathered. Kiba woke the other four in the room and explained the situation.

Hinata took the information well, grabbing a change of completely black clothes from her dresser. Upon changing, she and the pack sprinted back toward the tower.

By now, the ninja of the village had been awakened; all were alert and at attention by the time Hinata and the pack arrived. They awaited orders with the rest of the shinobi, waiting for Tsunade's plan to take form before them.

The Gennin were to take the walls of the village, to protect their homes from further destruction. ANBU and jounin were to enter the fighting, as well as the chunnin and special jounin. Hinata would stay near the wolves at all times, and enter the fight in an area isolated from Oto's main force.

All aspects were agreed on, so the ninja retreated from the tower and made their way to their posts.

The forces of Oto were upon them sooner than anyone had expected; they tore through the forest, silent as the night, barely giving time for Konoha nin to react.

Hinata scanned the ninja for any sign of Kabuto or Quent. Almost a moment too late, she heard a tell tale whistle of a fast moving piece of metal. She ducked, pulling with her the tallest of the wolves, Hige.

Both crashed to the ground, but Hinata rolled from the dive and stood facing the direction of the metal's source. Quent, with a new, silent gun, stood before the six. He wore a grimace, with a slightly mad look in his eyes.

The black slits converged on Blue, widening as he took in her form, her wildness, her wolfishness. "Blue. You finally realized."

Ice blue eyes widened. "You knew! You knew, yet you made me hunt my own kind!" She growled, not an angry sound, but one of a wolf who has been utterly betrayed. It escalated into a high pitched whine at the end before she backed away. "I will have no part in this fight!" Her voice, clear yet pain-filled, rang out through the forest into the unseen depths. "Do what you will, but I will have no part in killing my ex-master or my own kind any longer!"

She backed away into the night, quickly fading from view with her dark pelt under the eternal night of the trees. Only the sound of her feet padding quickly upon the leaves was left of her presence.

Hige, aware of her pain as he was of no one else's, watched in sorrow as she fled. He turned on Quent, angry steel in the pupils of his eyes. "You monster!" He shouted, leaping at the older man, only to be flung to the side when Quent brought his gun forward and struck him on the head with it.

The brown wolf fell onto his side, hitting the ground with a dull thump and a moan of pain. His eyes stayed closed.

This insighted a howl from the remaineder of the pack members and a gasp from Hinata. "You are a cruel man, Quent-san. When you brought Blue into my cabin, did you really mean to use her to kill her own kind? Are you so heartless that you could destroy everything for which she now lives? You see this village? It is now her life. You see that wolf you just struck down? He is her love. You see this pack of wolves? It is her family, more so than you ever were. Could you really take all that away from her?" Opalesque eyes bore into his as Hinata's speech escalated.

"You, who has cared for Blue for her entire life, would, could wipe her happiness away with a shot of a gun. No one, not even one bent on revenge against an entire race, could ignore that." Her speech began to soften, now. She knew she had struck a heartstring within him. "You are not as evil, nor as revenge driven, as you think you are. Trust me when I say that revenge only brings sorrow; no one could know this better than our village." Her voice was whisper soft at the end, but it still carried to the ears of the man for whom they were meant.

"I…" He paused, thinking. "Hunting these creatures is all I live for; it is all I've known since my family died." Once more he paused. Taking a deep breath, he uttered the phrase that sealed his destiny. "I would kill them all before I would quit my revenge!" Raising his gun, he pointed it at the fallen wolf.

"You have just voiced your dying words." Kiba lunged at Quent as he spoke, leaving Hinata to protect Hige and stop the gun from firing.

They had planned this scenario, as well as many others, in the time of aniticipation of this very moment. Hinata had drawn a kunai before the old man had even finished his sentence. Rushing toward him with it, she grasped his wrist, tightening her hold and jamming the kunai into the barrel of the gun.

Kiba had merely been a distraction; with the gun gone, Quent was no threat. What they did not count on, however, was that the man did not let go of the gun. In fact, he had never seen the deception coming. He pulled the trigger.

The gun, unable to fire normally, exploded. The blast of grey smoke and the thunder-like boom that followed nearly knocked the wolves to the ground. The force of the explosion had injured the older man greatly. He lay dying in the grassy area beneath a tree, where he had been flung mercelessly by the explosion.

Toboe, the one most prone to acts of affection, sensed that the old man had held onto the gun for the very purpose that had occurred. He had nothing left to live for, and his struggle for revenge had ended. All that was left for him was to rejoin his family in death. The young wolf crawled over to the man.

He nuzzled his face, allowing Quent to believe he was Blue. The old man died happily, believing Blue had come back for him, and knowing he was to meet his family shortly thereafter.

The scene had a solemn touch, especially when Blue, who heard the explosion, came rushing back to the clearing.

Nothing could describe the anguished howl that burst forth as she rushed toward her "Ojii-san" and there were no words passed between the sombre beings left in the vicinity.

All too soon, Blue's mourning was cut short from a by a battle cry. A team of Oto chunnin rushed into the surrounding area. The chunnin caught them unawares, managing to knock Blue to the ground and to stab Hige in the right forepaw before anyone could react.

Blue stayed on the ground, as though she had lost the will to get up, especially after seeing the two people she held closest to her heart both lying on the ground with their eyes shut. One she knew was dead; the other she could only hope was unconscious.

Tsume growled and leapt at the one who inflicted damage. Latching onto the girl's arm, he bit deeply. The grey wolf snarled as he felt a coppery, metallic taste enter his mouth. The chunnin shrieked and flinched backward as Tsume's teeth touched bone.

Hearing a _chink_ near his ear, Tsume withdrew his teeth and attempted to dodge the kunai that had been flung in his direction. A gruff whimper was drawn from his throat as the metal tip hit its mark.

The metal had embedded itself into the muscles of his right shoulder, forcing him to put much of his weight on his less-dominate side. He was unable to move his right leg without tremendous pain shooting through his limb. The pain of the injury left him in shock for a long moment.

The other two chunnin had not watched in idle fascination as their teammate fought Tsume. They occupied Hinata, Kiba, and Toboe to keep them from helping the grey wolf.

When Tsume was stabbed, Toboe broke away from his tag-team fight with Kiba to help. He leapt at the chunnin, attacking her from behind. She threw the young wolf off of her, then spun and began furiously slashing at him with a kunai. He fled her strikes, eventually being forced out of the clearing and into the forest beyond.

Toboe kept his cool, even as he was seperated from his friends and the thought crossed his mind that he might never see them again. There was no way he could fight a ninja, panic, and still live to tell the tale. He learned that from Hinata in the days leading up to the battle. Working to stay calm, he threw himself into battle.

Back in the clearing, Hinata and Kiba were attempting to finish off their opponents quickly enough to help Toboe; since Tsume was injured, he could not go after them. Tsume decided to forgo their battle, instead trying to get used to walking on three legs once more. However, things were not working out as planned.

Hinata's adversary was of the same rank as her; therefore, they were similarly matched in skills. Kiba was used to having tough enemies, so he drew from his prior knowledge of battle expertise and the recent additions from the Hyuugas to aid him.

Hinata kicked, tossed shurikan, used her Jyuuken, anything she thought would give her the upper hand in their fight. The Oto chunnin matched her moves (save for the Jyuuken, which was barely dodged multiple times, and hit only once, in an unhindering place).

She bent backward to duck a kunai, then backflipped after it passed. She kicked the chunnin Kiba had been fighting, knocking the Oto nin to the ground and succeeding to eliminate him from battle shortly after.

Kiba flew over to her previous opponent, throwing him off with their expert switch. The white wolf managed to scratch the ninja across the torso before being thrown to the ground. He landed on his feet, immediately throwing himself back into the clash.

The chest wound slowed him, but the chunnin worked to keep his moves one step ahead of Kiba.

"Kiba! I'm going to go ahead and look for Toboe! You stay here and protect the others." Hinata shouted, not wanting to distract him, but understanding there was little other way to rescue the youngest member of the pack.

The white wolf made no indication that he heard the Hyuuga heiress, but she took off anyway, confident in his ability to win the battle.

Leaping into the trees, Hinata used her activated Byakugan to scan for Toboe through the trees and surrounding area. She was also on guard for the chakra signature of the chunnin that had followed him.

She found them some ways off, a kilometer and a half East from where he and the pack had seperated unwillingly. She moved through the trees at a breakneck pace to reach the small wolf before any more harm befell him.

Hinata found him, with several wounds, facing an also wounded opponent. Toboe had been cut multiple times, and had a large gash, similar to the one she had first found him, with across his stomach. She knew for a fact that the flesh around his stomach area was still sensative, meaning that the injury caused him more pain than it would have if it were in a different area of his body.

The chunnin he had been warring with had multiple abrasions on his arms, upper body, and legs. His left eye was beginning to swell, as though he had been punched, and there was a puddle of blood below him.

The Hyuuga girl believed that Toboe was in the better condition, but she did not want to wait to find out if her belief was true.

She lept into the battle, knocking the Oto ninja to the ground. The impact was accompanied by a cloud of dust that rose above them, masking the Oto nin's sight, along with Toboe's. Only Hinata's sight remained unimpaired by the dust, thanks to her Byakugan.

In the midst of their confusion, Hinata saw the chunin turn tail and run. Making sure he had fled the scene completely, Hinata turned to aid Toboe.

She approached, making no attempt to muffle her footsteps. "It's me, Hinata." She said to the wolf. He relaxed and laid on the ground, careful to avoid brushing his stomach.

"I need help. I lost a lot of blood just from running." He whimpered.

"Don't worry, Toboe. I'll get help as soon as this battle is over. For now, I'll just heal the skin over the wound so you won't lose any more blood. There is nothing more I can do in the midst of battle." She answered his plea reluctantly. The Hyuuga had wanted to save more of her chakra just in case she had to continue fighting, but there was no way Toboe could survive the rush back to the others with a gaping wound in his belly.

"Okay." He winced as he felt her cool hands touch his stomach in an effort to close the skin over his injury. It itched for the length of time that it took to heal, but the itching sensation soon faded, as did most of his pain.

"We have to move quickly! Kiba was still fighting when I left. He has an injured Tsume, Blue, and Hige to protect, as well as himself. We need to get back as soon as we can to make sure he is okay." Hinata explained their situation as she last knew it, then waited for Toboe's acknowledgement.

The wolf nodded and the two took off into the forest. Hinata, preferring to travel by tree, continually dodged branches that rushed toward her. Toboe, however, chose to keep to the ground, despite the higher likelyhood of finding an enemy.

Before long, they came upon the place where they had left the rest of the pack. The surrounding forest was splattered with blood, and a few bodies were cast meaninglessly into heaps as Kiba and Tsume fought for their lives.

Kiba's white pelt was flecked with red with blood; some of the metalic liquid was from his enemies, but the white wolf did have numerous gashes and scrapes from the kunai and skidding across the dirt. Tsume's hide was of such a dark color that nothing other than the crimson blood from his kunai wound could be seen on it.

Seeing that help had arrived, the two began to fight with renewed hope. Both Toboe and Hinata immediately leapt back into the fray. They were too slow.

Almost in slow motion, Tsume was attacked from behind. An approaching Oto team had heard the commotion and decided to swing by to find out what was happening.

They had come across a scene fit for a mass-murder. Enraged at the loss of their friends' lives, the nin attacked in a crimson tide.

Each member of the pack, whether human or wolf, watched in horror as Tsume fell to the ground. The severed trachea could not have been healed in the midst of battle; it probably couldn't have been healed at all, whether in combat or not. All they could do was watch as he took a last, gurgling breath.

His blood gushed out of his body, leaving it lifeless within the time span of a half of a minute. Thirty mere seconds had taken the life of a close friend. He had been constant, never changing; he had been stubborn and grumpy; he had been a family member to wolves who had never known a family.

The battle had not paused to wait for the grey wolf to die. This fact almost made it harder to accept the death. Hinata watched in growing numbness. Kiba preferred not to watch at all. Watching Toboe deal with the death of a loved one, a brother by all rights, was heart breaking.

He threw his head back and howled. At that moment, everyone at battle froze. They were transfixed by the pure sorrow, the melancholy expressiveness that could be understood even a kilometer away. Those who knew nothing of the life lost could understand the unadulterated grief of the young one whom had lost a brother.

This howl woke Hige, and Blue seemed to regain some of the will to live as he stood, favoring only three paws. The dark furred wolf whimpered at the agony of losing a newly aquired friend, but could not imagine the pain of the rest of the pack; they had fought together, and were in every sense of the word, brothers in arms.

Hige hid the pain of loss under a mask of shock. The real thing would catch up to him later, but it was war; there was no time for such irresponsible action as mourning every death that occurred.

Being first to snap out of the agony-induced howl, the Oto ninja attacked once again. By their vests, they were all jounin ranked.

The pack and Hinata, already outmatched in rank, were forced to fight to the limits of their abilities. Though they outnumbered the jounin, they were all out-classed.

Nearing her limits, Hinata struggled to dodge the incoming attacks and retaliate. Not one of her Jyuuken strikes touched her opponent.

The wolves were also nearing their limits. They were slowing to a fraction of their original speed, and their attacks and bodies were suffering from it.

A plan began to form in Hige's mind as he attempted to protect Blue from an incoming attack. He leapt in front of Kiba, deciding to run it by him first. If their leader agreed, the others would also.

"Kiba, take the pack and Hinata and run. Keep Blue safe, please. I'll stay here and hold them off so you can find help." He ducked a kunai as it was thrown between them. The plan had very little time to work, otherwise, they would all die.

"We can't just leave you here, they'll kill you!" Kiba was surprised that Hige would go so far to protect Blue and the others.

"I know. If I don't do something though, we'll all die. I betrayed you once; I want to be remembered as having helped you before I die."

Kiba stood silent for a few short seconds before realizing that Hige's life was in his hands. "It is your choice. Whatever you do, it's up to you."

Taking that as Kiba's permission to stay behind, Hige went to spread the word to everyone else. His final words to Kiba were, "Protect Blue as well as you can. Please, Kiba." He turned to the rest of the wolves.

He met with unhappy looks from Toboe and Hinata, but they understood. They each told him it was his choice, but no one liked the thought of leaving behind one of their own.

Hinata, though, gave him something to think about. After he told her the plan, he asked her to protect Blue. Her response made him pause for a moment. "I will not be the one protecting Blue. Haven't you realized that she will stay with you no matter what you choose? For what else does she have to live? She will not come with us if you stay here. Even if it means dying, she would prefer to be with you in death than stay in life without you."

Hige looked solomn for a moment before determination flooded his eyes. "Then we just won't die." He left to tell Blue of his plan and see how she would react.

As Hinata predicted, the she-wolf refused to leave Hige's side. They had previously agreed on a signal, a raised tail, so everyone would know when to flee. Hige excecuted this movement, then he and Blue leapt in front of the jounin to allow the others an escape route.

Tsunade and Shizune were both standing at the foot of the Hokage Tower. Across from them, Yakushi Kabuto stood, calmly observing the anger underlying the Godaime's features. "Tsunade-sama, how nice to finally see you again." His tone was polite, almost careless. His mask was a great asset to him.

"You and I both know that you couldn't care less who I am, as long as you get the Byakugan." Tsunade didn't feel like playing mind games with a murderer and traitor.

"Aw, but don't you love being able to see the product of your teammate's training? I am, after all, practically the student of Orochimaru." A hint of an evil look passed through his glasses, but the light reflecting off the glass covered his eyes before Tsunade could be sure.

"Just let me kill you and get this encounter over with. I'm tired of listening to your voice." The battle of the leaders had begun.

Hinata took the lead as they began making their way back to the village. Her Byakugan showed Hige and Blue fighting two of the jounin. Both wolves were alive, but only the two jounin could still stand to fight.

Using her active Byakugan to keep watch behind her and to warn the others to hide from an approaching group allowed them to enter the village gates unhindered. The group approached the Hokage Tower. As the scene in front of the tower came into focus in Hinata's eyes, she froze. Kiba and Toboe stopped with her.

"Tsunade-sama is fighting Kabuto. She has him in a choke hold in the center of a crater in front of the tower. It looks like they're talking. I don't know what they're saying, but we can't get any closer. Tsunade-sama cannot afford to be distracted, nor can we safely sneak up on her." She explained.

They watched Tsunade's rage in silence.

"So how are you going to kill me? Are you going to slit my throat and watch my blood slip from my body? Or maybe crush me with your fierce power and watch my blood splatter everywhere? Or, you could-" His voice was rough, courtesy of Tsunade's choke hold on his neck.

"Kabuto, shut up!" Tsunade broke in, whispering hoarsely.

"Oh, that's right! You are a hemaphobic! I forgot you were afraid of blood. Silly me." He said as though he had no care in the world. His tone was flippant, as though he actually had forgotten. He was cynical, even in the face of death.

Tsunade, detecting the lie for what it was, pushed her hand further into his neck. "You know that I am a medic ninja. I can kill you a hundred ways without ever breaking your skin. I thought someone of your 'superior intellect' would know that. The ways are all very obvious to medics like you and I. You should be ashamed of yourself." Her tone suggested she was repremanding a student of hers, not lecturing a man whom she was about to kill.

His eyes did not widen, nor did they flicker as her chakra shot into his system. His mask, always firmly in place, never wavered. He had been a spy far too long. He had taken up a mask, never for it to fall again.

Not even in his dying moments.

"Wish the Hyuuga luck for me." With that cryptic statement, life faded from his body.

"The fight between Tsunade-sama and Kabuto is over. I think it's safe to approach them now." Hinata stated as soon as movement ceased. Taking no chances, she shouted ahead.

"Tsunade-sama!"

The addressed woman looked up to find Hyuuga Hinata running toward her, followed by two of the wolves. When they were close enough for the blonde to see their facial features clearly, she questioned them. "What is wrong? What happened?"

The girl filled the Hokage in on everything that had transpired since the battle had begun. (She still stuttered occasionally, but it was far less prominent than what it had been.) Hige and Blue's sacrifice shocked her for a moment, but soon the story was finished and she had no time to feel anything. "Let's go." Instructing Hiashi, who had come onto the scene when he realized that was where Kabuto and his daughter were both located, to watch the body and make sure it stayed dead.

Using Hinata's Byakugan (which was always a handy Kekegenkai to own), the four made their way back to two dead Oto ninja, one superficially wounded Oto kunoichi, and two mortally wounded wolves. The two dead jounin had most likely bled to death, due to the number of gashes left on their torso, arms, and legs. The one that still lived had just as many wounds, but they were shallower, much less dangerous than the ones inflicted on her team members.

Blue and Hige looked as though they were about to fall over. Blue seemed exhaused, as though the battle made her sleepy. Her fur was matted and stained a deep crimson, some of the blood hers, and a little of it her enemy's.

Hige's fur was also matted, but the blood on his coat was still a bright crimson. He looked almost ready for his legs to give out, but he fought on in a fury. He was seemingly moving on sheer will power to protect his love.

If the reinforcements did not hurry, soon both wolves would be dead.

The Hyuuga girl described the scene in the woods surrounding the three living beings so that the wolves would not be surprised to stillness in a dangerous place.

They arrived at their destination just as a final strike was made to Hige. Blood gushed from his chest as the kunai in his heart was removed by the Oto kunoichi. She stumbled back and blindly slashed as Blue attacked with a ferocity only shown by those who have lost loved ones.

She sank her claws into the girl, ripping out her throat just as the kunoichi thrust her kunai into the furry body of her assailant.

The jounin was killed instantly. Blue staggered over to Hige and spent her last moments in his arms.

They died with a promise to meet again, somewhere, somehow.

Each living being bowed their heads in sorrow; two then raised them and let out a mournful keen.

Kiba and Toboe had lost almost everything they had worked to gain. Their makeshift family was lost.

"They will be honored as heroes, recognized for their sacrifice." Tsunade quietly stated. "They chose to give their lives to save yours."

Kiba turned wolfish eyes on the blonde woman. "You've never lost anyone that is as close to you as a brother! You don't know what it's like." His voice, little over a whisper, was as cold as ice.

To the white wolf's surprise, the older woman smiled. "I have lost far more than you can imagine. My teacher, my brother, my fianceé, and even my teammates. Almost everything I held dear to me before. I rebuilt my life, though. Now, I have a village I can protect, villagers who need me. You can do the same. It may take time, but the hurt will pass." Her philosophical outlook was surprisingly optimistic considering the way she still drank to relieve her own hurt.

The speech seemed to have the affect she wanted though. A new look of determination entered Kiba's eyes. Though he would need time to get used to the fact that his pack would never come back, he still had everything he had built in Konoha to fall back on. _I have a friend here, and Toboe is still alive. He's just a kid. I have to get through this. I also have Hinata._

Said girl's eyes were watching the white wolf in something akin to worry. There was worry in her eyes, but there was an underlying hint of something else. A thought suddenly hit him. _Of course! They were her friends, too. All of us were. She cared about us enough to save Tsume's life, to take all of us in when we were hurt, even at the cost of her honor. She kept our secret until we were willing to give it away. It was like we'd always known her._ The only problem with his conclusion was that she didn't look sad.

The look passed as he continued to watch her eyes, but he was still mystified by it.

There was a sudden puff of smoke, given off by the appearance of several ninja wearing masks. One of them spoke; the person's mask was one of a hawk. "ANBU has searched the perimeter of the village. All Oto nin are currently dead or fleeing, now that they know their Kage is dead."

Tsunade nodded. "Help me gather the bodies of the three dogs from this area. They sacrificed their lives to save the Hyuuga Heiress' own. They deserve proper ceremonial rights and honor from our village."

The ones in masks stood still for a moment, then began to follow orders. Each wolf body was carried back to the village and burned at the ceremonial pyre in the way dead ninja were honored.

The Oto ninja were burned also, but much less ceremonially. It hopefully wouldn't take a while for the thirsty ground to drink up all the spilt blood, but war was a nasty thing to the country on which it took place.

Before the ceremony, there was a body count, and a list of names was created of the dead and missing. Hige, Blue, and Tsume's names were all written on this list under the category of deceased.

Hinata didn't recognize any names on the list, other than those of the pack, so she assumed that those three were the only ones of her friends who had been killed in the battle.

She did wonder at the look Kiba had given her earlier. He had seemed sad when he first looked into her eyes, but then he had seemed to become more curious than anything.

Her questions about his stare lasted only until they were given clearance to go for a walk around Konoha as long as they stayed away from the area where the fight took place.

The summer heat was almost unbearable, but none of the friends had wanted to sit in the village. It was hard to believe that it had been a little over two months since she had first met Kiba.

They walked in silence, Hinat just enjoying the feeling of being out doors with nothing to worry about for the first time in a very long while.

The moment Hinata assured Kiba and Toboe that they were alone, Kiba began to speak. "Do you really care so little about my pack? I thought they were your friends!"

Hinata was shocked to the core. Of course she cared for them! They had been friends, closer to her than some of the people with whom she had gone to the academy. "What are you talking about? I cared about them; you're right, they were my friends!" Hinata wanted to know where this conversation was headed before she answered any questions with concrete answers.

"Before we reached Blue and Hige, you were describing the scene to us, right?" At her nod, Kiba continued. "You said everything with such an emotionless voice. Then, when they were killed right before our eyes, I looked at you. At first, you were looking at me as though you were worried. Then I noticed something else in your eyes. I couldn't tell what it was. I thought it was saddness, for losing your friends. But the more I studdied you, the less miserable you looked."

"Do you remember when I told you about my job?" Her stare encompassed both wolves so that they could not look away.

They nodded, wondering what turn the conversation would take with the mention of her being a kunoichi. "How many people do you think I've lost? Shall I begin a list? My mother, a classmate of mine named Sasuke – he's still alive, but he's like a walking shell of the person he used to be – a teacher named Asuma, Sandaime Hokage, Hige, Blue, Tsume, shall I go on? A shinobi's job is perilous. We can only expect to lose people in a war, Kiba. I leave my feelings behind as well as I can when I step onto the battle field. Does that mean I don't cry later for all the lives lost? No. Because I do. But not until I am sure things are safe can I allow my feelings to return." Her dispassionate speech, unaccusing and soft, struck Kiba. Finally, he was getting a glimpse into what she had always been, but he had never understood.

She was a weapon of her village.

"But you know, it's not all a bad thing. Without my training as a kunoichi, I would have died by your teeth when I first met you. I would have no self-defense skills. Nor would I be calm in the face of danger, like a looming war. There are ups and downs of doing everything; this job just happens to be my choice."

The argument settled, their walk continued. They headed back into the village afterward, content with just walking in silence.

**(A/N: There will be only one more chapter, the epilogue.**

**A short explaination of this chapter: It is my belief that Hinata hides behind a mask of weakness because she is shy and does not want attention drawn to herself. In explaination of why she seemed so stoic during the funeral, Kiba and the pack helped her gain the self-confidence to assert herself more, so because of that, she can be more ninja like. If that made sense.**

**Please forgive my inexperience writing battle scenes in detail. I have only written one other, and that was a while back. And, a****gain, I have to apologize for making you wait such a long time for this chapter.)**


	11. Epilogue

**(A/N: Another late chapter….sigh. I don't own Naruto or Wolf's Rain. I think it's more the style of the first two chapters than the rest of the story. It's rather short, but I like it. I suppose it kinda wraps up the story.)**

Epilogue: Two years later

There was a sombre air about the three as they walked down the streets. The girl, a raven haired seventeen year old, was looking up at the night sky. Her own eyes, mirror images of a great celestial being, made the moon seem less unique.

There was a boy, ninteen years of age, beside her. His hand, wrapped around hers, was pale. His wild, chocolate brown hair waved about his face in the wind. Although the night was beautiful, he preferred to look at the girl beside him; her eyes stayed focused on the stars above them.

Another boy trailed behind them, also looking to the stars. His honey colored eyes conveyed a sadness that was common in this village, but should not have been. His sixteen years of life had been mostly happy, but this night marked an event that had brought about much misery.

Two years ago, to this day, half of their pack members had died. Tsume, Blue, Hige; they were all dead. It was not without worth: they kept their newfound friend, honorary pack member, alive.

Hyuuga Hinata, the heiress of her clan, was allowed to live, along with her boyfriend, Kiba, and her other friend, Toboe, because of their sacrifices.

The time shortly after the deaths of their friends had been rough. There had been many silences that should have been filled with Hige's teasing laughter, or Tsume's brooding anger, or Blue's happy glances. The glue that held the pack together had been Kiba's endless searching. Now that it was only himself and Toboe, little else was needed other than Hinata.

With out that girl, out of Kiba's entire pack, five would have died. Without her, nothing would have pulled them through their injuries. Hige alone would have lived.

After the deaths of their pack members, Kiba decided to remain in Konoha. He took on tracking missions, preferring to stick with his own capabilities to earn his stay in a village that had been kind.

Toboe also stayed. He also took missions; both wolf-boys became extreme, loyal assets to the village. Their days within the village walls were spent walking, as humans, through the streets of Konoha, just spending time with Hinata.

Kiba had already faced her father, asking permission to court the heiress. It had been almost two months after the battle against Otogakure. The man did not know where he had come from, nor did he recognize him as the wolf for whom his daughter cared.

Only the straight, determined features of the wolf-boy and the fact that they had been long practiced allowed him to show none of the turmoil he felt inside when the Hyuuga's leader questioned him.

**Flashback**

_The man sat at his desk, eyeing the boy who had come before him, asking to court Hinata. "Why should I allow you, a nobody in this village, to court my daughter, the next in line for control of our clan? I don't even know your name." Hiashi smirked at the boy. Surely that would stump the kid. He had been rude to enter into Hiashi's office and ask to date his daughter without even giving his own name._

_His question –and statement– , however, had an adverse affect on Kiba. "My name is Kiba. Hiashi-sama, you shouldn't allow a nobody to date her." This statement brought the older man to attention. He leaned forward, put his elbows on his desk and linked his fingers together, much like Tsunade when she's deep in thought. "That is why I come with tidings from the Hokage. I saved your daughter's life during the fight with Kabuto. She returned the favor by asking Tsunade-sama to allow me to stay here in the village. _

"_I had just been passing through when I heard shouts from the battle. It seemed as though she had huge dogs lying on the ground around her. I assumed they were dead, so I ran to help Hinata-san just as one of the ninja around her rushed in to stab her through with a kunai." Of course, he was making this up, but this had been the story that they all agreed upon beforehand, should her father decide to check with her what had happened._

"_My friend ran for help, so I stayed and protected her as best I could. The Hokage, though we did not know it was she at the time, arrived shortly and dispatched them." This had been in case he asked how help had come. And why he had a friend who seemingly didn't help fight._

"_I see. So if I went to confirm this story with my daughter, she would say the same?" Hiashi was sure this boy was lying. There was no way five dogs could not protect his daughter to the point where she almost died. She was stronger too strong for that to happen, anyway!_

"_Of course. What reason would I have to lie to you if I knew you would find out the truth anyway? Tsunade-sama can even inform you of the fact that I saved Hinata's life." Kiba grinned wolfishly as he saw defeat enter into the man's moon-like eyes. They were oddly similar to Hinata's, though far from her friendly and comforting manor._

"_Is my daughter aware of the fact that you wish to date her?" Hiashi inquired as a vain effort of keeping his daughter a child._

_Kiba's eyes softened as he thought of her, and a soft smile light his face. "Yes. She is aware. We talked before I came to you for permission."_

_The look in the boy's eyes was almost a disconcerting opposite of what had faced him before. Hiashi knew that look. It was the look of a man who, at the very least, cared greatly for another person. "You may court my daughter." The man agreed, nodding his head slightly as he let go of the image of his little girl and realized she had been grown for longer than he had known. It was sad; he had missed so much of her childhood because he had been angry at the death of his wife._

_The boy looked up in surprise. He apparently hadn't expected to be allowed to date the daughter of the Head of the Hyuuga Clan so easily. His surprise soon melted into a smile of pure joy as he stood, bowed low, and headed for the door after murmuring a reverent "Thank you, sir."_

_Later on in the week, he saw the two, and another boy, walking through the streets with huge smiles on their faces. He knew he had made the right decision, but could't help wondering where his young daughter had gone._

_Hiashi smiled a small, sad smile at the retreating back of the boy whom he knew was in love with his daughter. After seeing them just now, he knew the feeling was returned. How had he missed so much of his daughter's life?_

**End Flashback**

Kiba's mind wandered through the meeting, wondering at the reasoning behind Hiashi's easy acceptance of him. It immediately returned to the present when he noticed the tear sliding down his girlfriend's cheek.

He reached up to brush it away, letting his fingers linger on the soft skin of her cheek. "I'm sorry, Kiba. I just wish there had been a way we could have saved them."

He didn't have to wonder about whom she was speaking. He didn't even make a sound as he stopped and pulled her to a stop beside him.

Toboe watched as Kiba stopped a little bit ahead of him. He had seen the tear as it slid, reflecting moonlight until it hit the ground. He had known Kiba for years, yet never seen him as gentle as he was with the Hyuuga girl.

From their relationship, one would think they had known each other their whole lives, but they had just connected when they met, on some instinctual level. At least, that's what Kiba had told him.

Their relationship made him recall a girl somewhat younger than him. The girl whom he had frightened so long ago within the Hyuuga Compound. She did not know of his connetion with the 'dog', but she had still been wary of him at first. He had questioned her about it once, but she hadn't known why either.

**Flashback**

"_Maybe you're afraid of me on some instinctual level." Toboe wondered aloud._

"_No!" The thirteen year old exclaimed, shaking her head. Her chocolate brown hair flew out in the breeze created by her movement. Pearly eyes widened at the thought of fearing a friend of her sister's. She was rather small, like her sister, almost frail looking. "Why should I be frightened of you? I've never met you before, but I know you're one of the people who saved my sister. If you'd go so far out of your way to rescue a stranger, why would you hurt her sister?" She rationalized, almost as much to him as to herself._

"_Maybe I remind you of someone you used to know, then." He wanted so know if she could recall her meeting with him as a wolf. If so, he would have to let her know the truth eventually, but for now, he just wanted to know if she was truly frightened of him._

_She thought for a minute, frowning slightly. "Well, there was this one…" She paused mid-sentence. "No, nevermind. Forgive me. My thought was rude and couldn't possibly have been relevant." The chocolate haired girl was no longer a child; she couldn't get away with thoughtless remarks like the one she almost made and still expect to be liked. In a child, that kind of talk is cute; in a teen, it's rude and uncalled for._

"_Humor me." He said goodnaturedly, with a smile for added comfort. He wanted to get to know the sibling of his honorary pack member, but had to find out if she knew he was a wolf, or 'the large dog' as he had been callled._

"_Well, my sister once took care of some huge dogs. She'd talk to them and spend most of her time with them, but I was terrified of them. I met one in the hallway outside my bedroom once, and it scared the living daylights out of me. You kind of reminded me of him." She gave a shaky laugh. "I used to check outside my door with my Byakugan after that, I was so afraid. But like I said, it was rude to think you were like that dog."_

_Toboe just smiled and rubbed the top of her head, completely messing up her hair. "Don't worry about that. I take no offense. After all, I __**was**__ the one who asked, Hanabi-san."_

_She smiled and relaxed. Hinata had always picked friends who were kind; why should Hanabi expect anything different about this boy?_

**End Flashback**

He hung out with Hinata's sister only when she and Kiba were on their dates, at first. They were friends, but the more time he spent with Hanabi, the more it seemed to him that they could be more than friends. That was not something he wanted to worry about at the present, though. Eventually, he would work things out: a talk with Hinata, to make sure she was okay with it, a talk with Hanabi herself, to see if there was more to pursue, a talk with her father, to gain permission, and a talk with Tsunade, especially. There would always be a need to check with her for a relationship with a ninja of her village. After all, he and Kiba were strays allowed to stay because of the whims of two people…

At the present, all he wanted to do was go home and sleep since he was finally tired. They had been walking the streets for over an hour, trying to exhaust themselves so they could sleep without wandering minds.

Instead of interrupting to let them know he was headed to the appartment he shared with Kiba, Toboe just turned and took the long way back. He wanted to let them talk privately, and he knew he would not be missed right now. There were others who were missed much more.

Hinata saw Toboe walking away out of the corner of her eye, but the rest of her attention was focused on Kiba. He looked serious. "I know you must miss them, because I, who knew them only a short time, do also." He knew whom she was referring to without having to ask.

"I do miss them. After the loss of my pack, and then more wolves, _friends_…" He shook his head as he trailed off. "They _chose_ sacrifice, though. They would not have been happy if they had stayed here for the rest of their lives. Nor would they have been happy about breaking up our pack. Yes, Blue and Hige would have remained in the village, but they wouldn't have truly been happy like Toboe and me. Tsume probably would have left, making Toboe feel as though he had to chose. We are the only ones in our pack who could remain happy in one place. Even if they had lived, it would only have made them miserable." He knew that a lot of 'ifs' were involved in what he was saying, but his statements to his girlfriend were the most likely outcomes.

He watched as her look became less strained. "I know that. I just wish they didn't have to die so that you and I could be happy together."

Put that way, that was exactly what he said. Thouroughly ashamed, he spoke up. "I didn't mean it like that. It's just, they made their choice. We had to abide by it. They wanted this for us." His smile was tender as he looked down at Hinata.

She looked up at him, then to the stars. She whispered words meant only for them, then gasped as Kiba's warmth suddenly disappeared. He kept his hand twined with hers as he led her to the top of a hill in the midst of the forest. "Look down instead." He spoke as they arrived at the top.

She gasped. The sky was reflected in a clear lake below them. She had seen this place during the day, but never thought of the way it would look with a sky full of stars in the lake below them. "It's beautiful." She breathed, leaning back against Kiba's warm chest. His arms wrapped around her waist as his chin fell to her shoulder.

He made no reply, but though he could stand there the rest of the night with his love wrapped in his arms looking over a beautiful sky –and lake– of stars. There was no better way to end a painful day.

**(A/N: I know the flashback focuses more on Hiashi's thoughts than Kiba's, but I thought it would be more effective that way. [i.e. he realizes he missed out on Hinata's childhood because all he did was push her away, and now he regrets it.] I also couldn't resist adding in an itti bitty bit of ToboHana [lol that sounds funny when you say it out loud]. I was trying to figure out something to do with Hanabi in this chapter, because when I added Hiashi in, it struck me that I didn't mention Hanabi any more after she was scared by Toboe. Then this idea suddenly struck me. And here you have it!**

**Forest Meeting is over. –tear, tear- Oh well. I have an [actual!] one shot in mind to type up next. At least this time you won't have to worry about long waits for chapters, right? **

**Thank you to all of you who reviewed this story. I didn't expect it to get this many hits or reviews, but I'm incredibly glad for all your support [and the fact that you stuck with me this whole time, even through the loooooooong absence{s}]. Thanks again!)**


End file.
